Body Swap, Take Two
by Lynn Luther
Summary: Series 9, Byte 1, Episode 2. When Lister steals a relic from a derelict ship, the crew gets a whole lot more than they bargained for.
1. Prologue

_**Author's Note:** Hello again! I hope you've read Parole, because if you haven't, you're going to be horribly and terribly confused. And I'll be hurt. And we don't like that, now do we, kids? So, go read Parole, review it, and then come back for seconds with my Series 9, Byte 1, Episode 2 story entitled Body Swap, Take 2. _

The characters portrayed in this story do not belong to me, and I make no money off of them. The only exceptions are Hippolyta . . . and the villains. (And even then, I make not one thin dime. Ah well.) 

Now, I'm not sure if you've read Doug Naylor's explanation as to why there are no alien life forms anywhere in the Universe. I, for one, think that's total bollox, but as I'm working in their sandbox, I'll play by their rules. Mostly. Sort of. Eh. I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll see when you get there. 

As before, this entire series is dedicated to Tim, who got me hooked on this show waaay back in the early days. But I also dedicate this particular story to all the members of the RDSS, who inspired me to write this. It may not be *actual* slash, but it's gonna be treading that thin, fine line. Thus the R rating. Seriously. If you're under the age of 15, for the love of Pete, don't read this. You'll warp your fragile little minds. And the last thing I need are your mothers sending me nasty e-mails. I get enough of that shit at work, thanks ever so much. 

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**Prologue**

The derelict had no visible designation. And even if it were visible, would it really matter? It was a derelict. As such, it only had one basic purpose; survival. Survival for the crew of the newly freed Starbug XX. See a derelict, raid it. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

She hung in the void, not doing much of anything at all. Hence the classification of derelict. Her hull was breached in several places, mostly around the crew decks. But even if the vacuum of space hadn't killed the crew so many millennia ago, the things that made the holes would have done it for sure. It was as if someone had taken a gigantic three-hole punch and used it on the ship in various, seemingly random spots. But no matter where the holes originated, there were always three right in a row, perfectly symmetrical, perfectly spaced, perfectly round. 

_Cauterized._ That was the word Kochanski was looking for. Like wounds that had been healed not by bandages and competency, but by leaches and hot iron dipped in vinegar. She shuddered. It was such a clean job. Efficient. She briefly wondered what could possibly do such a thing, then slammed her mind shut against her imaginings. It was too horrible to even contemplate. She said a silent prayer that whatever it was was long gone, and they'd never, _ever_ meet up with it. Even still, something nagged at the back of her brain. It was eerily familiar. She could almost hear a buzzing, buzzing... Buzzing. 

She and Rimmer sat in the cockpit, not speaking, just watching the chrono tick away the hour that the rest of the crew promised they'd be gone. The Cat, Lister, Kryten and Hippolyta were aboard the derelict, scrounging for supplies. Rimmer had begged Hippolyta not to go, but she had raised an eyebrow at him and said, "Not on your tintype, lover. I'm in charge of _security,_ remember? So, I secure that ship." He had shut up about it, but couldn't still his rumbling stomach. 

Something was wrong here. Rimmer couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was very, very wrong. Maybe it was because she was aboard the derelict. Maybe because it had been forty five minutes without any radio contact. Or maybe it was down to the huge smegging holes in the hull. He felt himself getting a bit of a headache, and his ears began to ring. Like he'd spent the last day and a half listening to loud music. But there was no tinitus, just the echoing silence of the Starbug. He needed to hear a sound. Any sound. Even the sound of his own voice. 

He turned to Kochanski. "You ok?" 

"Fine." She was bent over her console, and didn't look up. Rimmer knew that she was coping with the stress by burying herself in her work. 

Perhaps she had the right idea... 

He looked intently at the images before him on the ops console. They were dancing, waving back and forth in a conglomeration of total and utter gibberish. He blinked. Still the same. 

"Kochanski, are you having any problems with your console?" 

"No, why?" 

"Take a look at mine, would you?" She leaned across and glanced at his console. 

"I don't see anything wrong with it." 

"It's not dancing or waving about?" 

"Noooo." She looked at Rimmer as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Look, why don't you go and get a snack or something, Rimmer? I'll be fine alone. You go rest for a moment." 

Rimmer lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Miss Kochanski, ma'am. I just..." 

"I understand, Rimmer. Go on, then." Rimmer stood and exited the cockpit, just as the radio crackled to life. He turned a quick about face and leapt up the stairs to sit back in his seat. 

"Kryten to Starbug. Come in Starbug." Kryten's voice sounded through the static. He didn't sound nervous or in trouble, and Rimmer sighed a deep sigh of relief. 

************* 

"We're ready to come back aboard, Ma'am." Kryten stood in the vessel unprotected by any outer suit. He didn't need it. Hippolyta was right next to him, and the Cat and Lister were just around the bend, getting the last of the boxes ready for departure. "The mission was a complete success. We've found food stuffs, a few pieces of machinery and tools, and several big bolts of cloth!" 

"Cloth?" came Rimmer's questioning voice over the com-link. 

"Yeah, sweetie, cloth." Hippolyta turned on her own com-unit inside her space suit to speak to her lover. "Nice to have around. Bandages, new clothes, et cetera." She grinned like a shark. It was, without a doubt, the ugliest cloth she had ever come across. Orange, with huge green geometric shapes all over it. Kochanski would have an apoplectic seizure. That'd be a giggle for a few minutes. 

"Any sign of the... thing... that did that to the hull?" Kochanski's voice now came over the link. 

"Not a bit, ma'am." Kryten answered. "There are a few similar, smaller holes throughout the entire ship, but the structural damage is surprisingly light. The placing of the blasts indicated that they knew where to strike to get the most casualties with the least damage to the..." 

"Stop!" screeched Kochanski. "Just... stop, Kryten. I really don't need to know. Ok?" 

"Yes ma'am. Ready to transmit?" 

"Green light. Load one of how many?" 

"Four, possibly five if Miss Hippolyta's math is off." 

"In a pig's ear, Kryten. And you know it." Hippolyta had her back to the mechanoid, and said this mildly, with an undertone of acid to it. She was securing the last tie-down to the pile of things that lay jumbled in a crate. If she didn't tie it down, the lack of gravity on the derelict would make it all float away. "Transmit, now." The crate vanished in a twinkling. 

"You didn't add us to the transmit load, Miss Hippolyta." 

She sighed. Kryten was beginning to be a big fat pain in her ass. "Fine, Kryten. Five transpos. Including us." 

"Thank you, ma'am. Smug mode engaged." 

"Jesus Christ on a pogo stick," she muttered to herself. "Lister! Cat! Get the lead out!" she snapped into the com-unit. 

"Comin'!" Lister answered, as he and Cat came nearer, lugging three more large crates of various chattels. It was easy, due to the lack of gravitation. The boys practically bounced back to them. It proved to be a mistake. 

A spanner hadn't been fully secured, and as they reached the valley of their jog, it bounced out of the top crate and went spinning lazily back the way they had come. 

"Smeg!" exclaimed Lister. It missed his faceplate by mere inches. 

"Let it go, Dave. Not a big deal." Hippolyta waved it off. 

"Actually, Miss, it is. That was the only spanner we found, and we only have one on the 'Bug. We need it as a backup." 

"Fine," snarled Hippolyta. "Dave?" 

"I'm on it." He and the Cat put down the crates, and Dave loped back toward the liberated spanner. 

He rounded a corner, following it. It whirled slowly a few feet down the corridor. He made a few more jumps, feeling the magnets in his boots pull him back to the floor each time. He made one last jump, and caught the spanner in one fist. 

"Gotcha! Score one for Dave Lister! So fast! So tight!" He glanced around. He was in a portion of the ship that they hadn't really explored. He was in a large round room, and there were more of those strange holes. But these were much closer together than the others, and only on the walls. In the center of the room was a dais, lit from below with soft blues and greens. Sitting on the dais was... 

A watch. A normal, plain wrist watch. With an indiglo face and digital readout. 

"Right on. Need one of these." Dave snatched the watch off the dais, stuffed it in his carry-pouch and bounced back the way he came. 

"You got it, Dave?" 

"Yep, got it, Hippolyta." 

"Let's the hell outta here. I've had an itchy trigger finger since we got on board, and Tin Can Trousers ain't helping the situation. Kochanski, transport." 

If Kryten had a complaint or comeback to Hippolyta's put down, the derelict did not hear it, for at that moment, they all vanished off of it. 

************* 

And a million eyes, attuned to one goal, watched them go. 

That goal was... _revenge._

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**To be continued.**


	2. Switch

_**Author's Note:** Dedicated/Disclaimed in the Prologue. And there's sex in this chapter, so for those who aren't of the age of consent. . . bugger off._

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Deep in the blackness of space, approximately three million years from old home Terra, third planet of Sol, an insignificant little green dot buzzed around aimlessly. With no prospects, no direction, no reason to be anywhere. It was a pointless thing, really, this little green dot. The life forms inside it were hopelessly primitive, still thinking of love and lust and sweat and food and tears and laughter and blood. It was as if the last thirty millennia had passed them by. Which, in a way, they had. 

They all had their duties aboard their little green dot of a ship. Kochanski was at the navicomp. Rimmer was at ops. Kryten was in charge of stores and general health. The Cat and Lister were, as always, firmly at the steering columns, either together or in shifts. Hollister was their security team. It was really all quite perfect, in a dysfunctional family way. They all had their niches, and they all had their down times. Kochanski and Lister got theirs together, as did Rimmer and Hollister. The Cat and Kryten declined to spend their off time together, seeing as the cuddle bug had firmly bitten every human member of the ship, and they were afraid of catching it themselves. 

Speaking of cuddle bugs. . . 

"Mrmph. Rimmer, get the smeg to bed, would you please? I need to sleep." 

"So sleep." Rimmer was seated at his desk, a lamp burning brightly pink over head, a beautifully rendered revision timetable spread out before him. He was studying it intently, but his mind could see nothing but the blonde woman entangled in his sheets. 

"Six weeks," she said suddenly, sitting up, her left breast coming into view as the sheet slipped down. 

Rimmer's head snapped up as he stared at her. "I beg your pardon?" 

"Beg away. Good for the metabolism." Rimmer snorted, but continued to stare. "I said, six weeks. Six weeks, now, we've been sleeping together. And from that six weeks, you should know that I can't sleep unless the lights are out."

"Sorry. But I can't revise in the dark." Rimmer lowered his eyes back to the time table in front of him. 

"Why don't you come to bed and we'll revise together in the morning?" 

"Because you hate astrophysics?" 

"Not true!" 

He looked up again. "Yes, true. The one time you revised with me, you got all huffy and left." 

"Because you were more intent upon me than you were of your revisions." 

"Can you blame me?" 

She chuckled softly to herself. "No, I suppose not." 

Hippolyta and Rimmer had claimed the Officer's quarters on the Starbug XX in their first day on board. It had come down to Rimmer saying, "I called Firsties," when Lister had protested. In the end, he and Kochanski took the slightly smaller quarters just down the corridor. Mainly because Hippolyta had taken him aside and threatened him with emasculation if he didn't give in. 

Their first night together, Rimmer and Hippolyta had gotten undressed, crawled into bed, promised to do horrible, nasty, lascivious, lecherous things to each other's bodies, and then promptly fell asleep. They didn't mean to, but that first night came at the end of an extremely long day, involving a stint in prison, Rimmer getting a fat lip, a gun fight with several big men and a seat of their pants escape from the Red Dwarf. 

Came the dawn, however... 

Hippolyta had been startled out of a deep and dreamless sleep by the realization she was naked, that there was a naked body in the bed next to her, and that it was a man. It took her several moments to get her bearings, most of which were filled with the thought of, "Holy shit, how much did I have to _drink?"_ But her mind snapped the context back to the forefront of her consciousness, and she realized that it was Rimmer that she was laying in bed naked with. 

In the non-light of Starbug's "dawn," Hippolyta turned and stared at Rimmer's sleeping profile. When his face was relaxed and composed by sleep, he looked like a child. His poor, bruised mouth was slightly open, and his breathing soft. She could stare at him forever. She had only met him three days previously, and she could, in all seriousness, see herself being with him until the day she died. Ridiculous. But strangely, crazily, true. She'd heard of this before. Someone told her once that this was what true love was all about. You didn't know how or why or when it would hit you. You simply _knew._ Without doubt, without hesitation, that this was it. 

She leaned over his sleeping face and planted a very delicate kiss on his slack upper lip. 

He woke up instantly. 

She began to apologize for waking him up, did I hurt you? Your lip? But without a word, he grabbed her around the shoulders and kissed her back, hard. Hippolyta could feel him becoming very aroused, and nearly fainted. She had never been with anybody naked all over, before. It was unbelievable. It was intense. 

It was the best in either of their lives. He rolled her gently onto her back, still kissing her passionately. He slowly positioned himself over her, giving her ample opportunity to stop him. She did not. They broke from the kiss, and he looked into her eyes, as, for the first time, he entered her. 

They lay there, not moving, for a few seconds. They couldn't move. They could hardly even breathe. But finally, he began to move, trying to find a rhythm that they could both enjoy. She tried her hardest to give back as good as she got, but her relative inexperience gave her no clue as how to proceed, and what he would like her to do. She had never asked Rimmer about his previous sexual encounters, but the way he was trembling indicated to her that his experience was limited as well. So she let her body guide her, and unhooked her brain from the entire process. If it felt good to her, perhaps the same would be true of him. She knew that it was working when Rimmer moaned her name in ecstasy. She bit back the desire to scream. She wanted to, because it felt _good,_ dammit! 

Suddenly, a hot, tingling sensation began in her stomach and spread quickly throughout her entire body. She had never had an orgasm before, and was so shocked that she stopped moving, every muscle growing rigid. She felt Rimmer's body give a jerk, and she felt her insides awash with something wet and warm. He collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily. He had come. 

He lay on top of her for a few moments, his face buried in the pillow. She stared up at the top bunk, trying to catch her breath. Finally, he pulled away from her, using his arms to support himself, looking down at her. 

"I love you." 

"My God. I love you too." 

He rolled back over "his side" of the bed, and she shifted position so she could snuggle up to his side. She ran her fingers through his unkempt hair, and used her other hand to draw little circles on his chest and abdomen. He snuck his arm under her neck, and they lay in the afterglow. 

Over the next six weeks, that same scene played itself out many, many times, with subtle variations. They experimented. They giggled a lot. They made the others slightly nauseous with their random "Excuse us, be back in a moment's. Lister had commented that if they weren't careful, they'd fill the ship to capacity in a matter of months. This, of course, had made Rimmer blush slightly, snap a scathing comment back at Lister, and ask Hippolyta later in private if she was on the pill. She said no, but don't panic, as her implants were guaranteed effective for ten years. What she didn't tell him was that she'd had the implant done the day that she was commissioned at eighteen, and never tested it. Only two years effectiveness left... Oh well. Burn that bridge when they get to it. 

****************** 

"So? You coming to bed? Or not?" 

"Not. Hippolyta. Darling. Sweetheart. I love you very much. I have to study." 

"Why? You're an officer, already. We all are, here. No tests. No commanding officers to try to make nice with. One big happy family. Or at least a benevolent dictatorship." 

Rimmer sighed. When she put her mind to it, Hippolyta could be quite the tease. He loved her, but he suspected that she didn't respect his need to finally pass the smegging astronavigation exams. He looked up from his charts. "Hippolyta, please. . ." 

She rose from the bed, standing fully naked in front of him. He marveled once again at her amazing body. Even when she annoyed him, he couldn't help but adore her every move. She ran her hands through her hair and struck a pose that would raise the dead. "You look at this and still say no?" 

"Yes. I say no. Hippolyta, you can shag me stupid later. I have work to do." 

She stuck out her lower lip and pouted playfully at him. But he was right. He did have work to do, and she understood. She reached over and grabbed her panties that were draped across the back of his chair. She began to get dressed. 

"Where are you going?" 

"The galley. I can't sleep with the light on, so I'm going to go get a quick midnight snack. You want anything?" She pulled a tee-shirt on, without putting a bra on first. It was white, and Rimmer could see her nipples standing out happily. He took a deep breath in through his nose. 

"I'm ok." He rose quickly and crossed to her, cupping one of her breasts with his hand. "But if you go out into the galley without a bra, Lister would be shocked." 

"Lister? Shocked? He'd love it. Are you kidding me?" He raised an eyebrow at her. She frowned. "Party pooper." She wiggled out of his grasp and grabbed her bra, which lay discarded on the floor. Without removing her shirt, she put the bra on underneath, a trick that never failed to amaze Rimmer. He suspected that they taught women how to do that in sex education in secondary school. She moved to the door. "You sure you don't want anything?" 

"Yes." He sat back down at his desk, mostly to hide the enormous hard on that was threatening to bust out of his trousers. She smirked at him, because she noticed. She crossed to the door. 

"Hippolyta?" 

She turned back. "Yes, Rimmer?" 

"Thank you. I love you." 

She smiled gently. "I love you too, dearheart." And she exited. 

****************** 

_~There.~ _

~There they are.~ 

~That's them? We're sure?~ 

~There are no others. They can be the only ones.~ 

~It has been too long. Many of us have died since that time. Many generations. They might not have it.~ 

~They have it. We see it. We can see it in that one's mind, clear as light, clear as song. He is a picture book for children. He is so simple, we would not have found him if it were not for the other one. Do we all see it now?~ 

~Yes. We see. Thank you for showing us, our very self. Our love.~ 

~My own. My body and soul. We will get it back.~ 

~Now?~ 

~Soon. What has been taken from us will be back with us. But not until we have meted out a punishment.~ 

~His body? Or his soul?~ 

~Perhaps both.~ 

~Yes.~ 

****************** 

Hippolyta lumbered down into the galley, thinking what could possibly be in the stores. Her stomach rumbled slightly, but the thought of a cold sandwich did not sound like what she wanted. She felt the desire to cook something. Glancing around, she made sure that Kryten was nowhere near the galley. If that damn mechanoid showed up, he'd try to take her project away from her. He was nowhere in sight. Good. 

****************** 

_~But what of the other one? The strong one who is so much like us, and yet not us? What of that one?~ _

~We shall see. That one is as much a puzzle to us as our own nature once was. In the end, who can know? That one could end us.~ 

~No. No no no no.~ 

~Not all of us. Just me.~ 

~No no no nonononononononononononononono. . .~ 

~Calm yourselves, children. It has happened before.~ 

~Never. You've been with us since the beginning, and will be with us until the end.~ 

~In one way, you are right. This moment is eternity. But I promise you that someday I shall die, and you'll have a new motherloverfriendkeeper, and you'll have known no one else but her.~ 

~Impossible.~ 

****************** 

She opened the refrigeration unit, and bent at the waist to inspect it's contents. A gallon of dried and reconstituted milk. A box of powdered eggs. A container of freeze-dried vegetables. And, surprisingly enough, a block of real cheddar cheese. She could make a passable omelet with this. 

She swiped the ingredients out of the fridge and laid them upon the counter top. She pulled a frying pan off of the hook nearby. A bowl and spoon later, she began to swirl the contents of her masterpiece around, waiting for the pan to gain it's proper heat. 

****************** 

_~How long? How long now? How long?~ _

~Patience, my loves. Our revenge may take many more generations. Patience. Patience is a virtue.~ 

~What is virtue?~ 

~Nothing that concerns us any longer.~ 

****************** 

"Somfin' smells good! Kryten, izzat you?" 

"No Dave, it's me. Making a quick snack. Anything new and exciting?" 

"Naw." Dave Lister swung his body through the cockpit door and joined Hippolyta in the galley. He looked refreshed, as his shift had just started. He carried a mug of what Hippolyta thought was mud at first sniff, but turned out to be coffee. She turned her attention back to her omelet, making sure that it didn't burn. Lister pulled a chair up to the table and sat. 

"Who's minding the store?" asked Hippolyta as she looked for a spatula. 

"The Cat," answered Lister after he swallowed his mouthful of coffee. 

"Wonderful," Hippolyta said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I feel so good about that. While we're at it, let's see if your unwashed socks want to drive." She slid her eggs out of the pan and onto a waiting plate. She dumped the used frying pan into the sink, not bothering to soak it. Revenge against Kryten, of course. But also because she was feeling lazy. 

"Hey, now. The Cat's on top of things." 

"Yeah, on top of the heating duct. It's a good thing there aren't any sunny windowsills on a space ship, or we'd never see him at all." She joined Lister at the table. Lister grinned, and blinked coyly at her. He looked like he was trying to get something out of his eyes. Hippolyta took the hint. "Oh, fer Pete's sake. Here." She stood and retrieved a second fork for Lister, who dug into the oversized breakfast dish with abandon. She smirked and started in herself. 

"You're a better cook than Krites is, Hippolyta," said Lister around a mouthful of eggs. 

Hippolyta snorted and swallowed her own mouthful. "Oh, please. Say that a little louder. I don't think he heard you down in the cargo hold." 

"He ain't giving you a hard time, is he?" 

"I think Kryten just doesn't like women much. Misogynist androids. Sounds like the name of a band." 

"What's misogynist?" 

Hippolyta did not answer, but raised an eyebrow at him. 

Lister smirked at her, and asked, "So, how's everything with you and Rimmer, then, eh?" 

"Peachy keen, thanks for asking." 

"You two getting on ok? Really?" 

She chewed and swallowed again before answering. "Yes. It's funny, but when I first met him, I couldn't stand him. Thought he was a pompous little twit." 

"He _is_ a pompous little twit." 

"And I love him. So what does that make me?" 

"Either blind or stupid or both." She stuck her tongue, which was specked with pieces of egg, out at Lister. "Or you're a saint." 

She pulled her tongue back in. "What do you mean, a saint?" 

"Well, you obviously love him, and he's the kind of guy who's very difficult to love. That means you have the patience of a saint." 

"I don't think he's difficult to love. No more than I am, anyway," she said defensively. 

Lister said nothing, just maintained a pointed look at her. She rolled her eyes. "Ok, I can be a bit of a handful. I'm loud, I'm blunt, I'm bossy. I'm also _aware_ of these things. It's not like I'm doing it on purpose. I just... do it. Lousy childhood..." 

"Oh God," moaned Lister. Hippolyta cut him off. 

"But that's no excuse. Horrible schooling years. Not an excuse. Bad experiences in love. Still not an excuse. Being told by dozens of people, most of whom happen to be related to you, that, no matter how hard you work and how hard you strive you'll always be second class due to the equipment between your legs... ah hah. Now we're getting somewhere." 

"Oh, I see. You're like this _because_ you're a woman?" 

"No, I do it because other people refuse to see me as a capable human being. Because I'm a woman." 

"What a load of tosh. This is the 24th century! Sort of. Women's lib has come a long way." 

"Not long enough. If you were told that you were less able simply because you had a penis, how would you feel?" 

"I'm less able for _that_ reason? And here I thought it was because I was a space bum." 

She rolled her eyes again and took the last bite of omelet. "I wish you could be a woman for just one day, David Lister. Then you'd see what I'm talking about." 

****************** 

_~Yes. Oh, that one is a brilliant thinker. So much like us. Gather yourselves, children. We're ready.~ _

~Now?~ 

~Almost. . .~ 

****************** 

Lister stood up from the table, grinning. "If I was a woman for one day, you'd never see me. I'd lock meself in me room and play with me breasts all day." 

Hippolyta grinned at Lister. "Oh, I believe that. Of course, if I were a man for a day, I would want to pee standing up. You would not believe the nasty stuff I've sat in." 

"Ick. That's gross even for me, Hippolyta." 

"I do try." She took the empty plate and dumped it in the sink. "What made you ask, anyway? I mean, about how things are going with me and Rimmer?" 

"Well, it's just that it's your bed time, and instead of the usual moaning sounds coming from your quarters, you're here cooking. I sense a bit of subletting here." 

"Sublimating?" 

"That's the bird." 

She shook her head. "We're fine. He's revising. And you know how much _fun_ he is when he's revising." 

"Don't I just?" 

"What time is it?" 

Lister pulled back the sleeve of his left arm and glanced at a watch there. "Just after 0200." 

She nodded, then did a double take. "Lister, where did you get that watch?" 

****************** 

_~Sooooooooon. . .~_

****************** 

"What, this? I found it on that really weird derelict a few weeks back. Ya know, the U.S.S. Swiss Cheese? It was just sitting in this room, not doing much. So I swiped it." 

She frowned at him. "You took an item off that ship without clearing it with me first?" 

"Aw, it's not a big deal. Everything else was fine." 

"Yeah, because I tested it all before we took it. Nothing was wrong with it because it was prescreened. Dammit, Lister!" She pounded her fist on the table top. "We had a deal. All items removed from derelicts are screened by either me or Kryten! You should _know_ better by now, dammit!" 

"I don't see what the big deal is. It's a watch. A normal, boring old watch!" 

"Which could turn into a Polymorph or a Psiren or be a booby trap by a Gelf... You starting to see what the big deal is, Lister?" 

"It's been three weeks. It hasn't changed shape or blown up or released radiation or the boogie man or aliens. It's just a watch. A normal old wrist watch with a light up face. See?" Lister pushed the button on the side of the watch. 

****************** 

_**~NOW!~**_

****************** 

Hippolyta felt as if she was being buffeted by a gale force hurricane. Her mind could nearly hear a million voices calling out, "Now," in a buzzing tone. But it was so random and so brief and so faint that she totally forgot about it in the face of what happened next. 

She felt the winds whip around her body and soul, imagined and yet physically real at the same time. She lurched forward and grabbed Lister by the wrist that had the watch on it. As soon as she touched him, she felt as if her skull was too small to hold her brain anymore. A sizzle of electricity flashed through her brain pan, and her stomach knotted and released. She was blinded by a sharp, bright light. 

She blinked. 

The light and wind and electricity were gone, and she found herself staring down at herself. She couldn't believe it at first. Her first rational thought was, _Oh great, I'm dead and having an out of body experience._ But when she saw her body move, and blink and breathe, she knew that there was another explanation. 

"What the hell was that?" She heard her own voice, but it sounded thick and husky, as if she had smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in one sitting. She was totally unprepared for what happened next. 

"Holy shit. Hippolyta?" Her body was talking to her, in the voice of Dave Lister. 

"Dave?" 

"Yeah." 

They stared at each other for a moment, then she lifted her hands in front of her eyes. 

They were brown, and calloused from playing the guitar, and stained by curries and nicotine. They were also thick and manly, with knobby knuckles and blunt, chewed fingernails. 

She was in David Lister's body. 

"Holy. Fucking. Shit! Dave! What the hell did you do?" 

"I'm a woman! I'm a smegging woman!" 

"You're not a woman! You're you in MY SMEGGING BODY! Now what the hell button did you push?" 

"Button? What button?" Dave, in Hippolyta's body, was staring about, eyes wide and darting. 

"THE BUTTON ON THE FUCKING WATCH!" 

The Cat, who had been listening with half an ear to their conversation, heard Hippolyta shouting. He put the 'Bug on auto pilot and jumped down into the galley. "Hey, what are you two monkeys arguing about? Keep it down!" 

"Don't panic, Hippolyta! We can fix this." The Cat did a double take upon hearing Lister's voice coming out of Hippolyta's body. 

"What the hell is going on?" asked the Cat. He didn't get an answer, as Hippolyta and Lister were both too wrapped up in their problem to take him into account. 

"How? How do we fix it?" 

"We push the same button again, ok? That should reverse it, right?" 

"Right, good thinking." 

They both paused, staring at each other. "Well?" asked Hippolyta. 

"You're wearing the watch now, Hippolyta." 

"Oh. Right." She pulled the offending wrist into view and inspected the watch. "Which button?" 

"The big one on the right side of the face." 

"This one?" 

Lister leaned in to inspect it. Rather, Lister leaned Hippolyta's body closer to his own to inspect it. "Yeah." 

"Brace yourself." Hippolyta pushed the button. 

Nothing happened. 

"Ok." She pushed it again. Things refused to get back to normal. 

"Smeg," moaned Lister, as Hippolyta frantically jabbed at the button over and over again. The face of the watch blinked on and off like an indicator light on the back of a car, but other than that, no effect. She finally stopped her futile attempts and looked up at Lister, murder shining in her eyes. His eyes, really. Her own eyes were shining with a different emotion entirely. Fear. 

The Cat, who all this time had been jerking his head back and forth at them, finally realized what was going on. 

"You two switched bodies? Oh my God, that's hys_ter_ical!" 

"Shut up, Cat!" the two of them snapped together. 

It was at this moment, of course, that Rimmer decided to make an appearance. 

He crossed instantly to whom he thought was Hippolyta, and wrapping her body in a tight embrace, he said, "Are you all right, Hippolyta? I thought I heard you yelling." He glared around the room at the Cat and Lister, wondering who to beat up first. If they had done anything to her... 

To his consternation, it wasn't Hippolyta who answered him, but Lister. 

"Rimmer, there's something I need to tell you..." 

He looked over at Lister. "Bugger off, El Slobbo. Or is it your fault she's upset, you rancid sack of protoplasm?" 

Lister goggled at him. Then he noticed that Hippolyta was squirming in his arms. He let go of her and looked down at her. 

Then, Hippolyta did something totally unimaginable. She spoke up and said, "Who you callin' rancid, man?" In a Scouse accent. 

Rimmer jumped about a foot and a half. He screamed in terror hearing Lister's voice coming out of Hippolyta's mouth. 

"Hippolyta?" 

"Over here, Rimmer." Rimmer jerked his head to look over at Lister's body. Lister waved at him. "Don't panic, Rimmer, but there's been a bit of an accident..." 

Rimmer felt like he was hyperventilating. No, he was hyperventilating. His breath came in short gasps, as he waved about to grab onto something. His hand landed on the back of a chair, and he sank down into it. Lister, no, Hippolyta was at his side in an instant, laying a brown hand on his shoulder. 

"Rimmer? Breathe, sweetie. Breathe. In, out. In, out." Rimmer managed to calm himself, hearing her voice, but not able to look at the body that she was currently habitating in. Finally, he mustered up his scant courage and looked at her. Him. Her. 

"What the smeg happened, Hippolyta?" 

She pointed Lister's finger at her erstwhile self. "He smuggled this watch on board, and made us switch bodies. And now we can't get it to happen again." She sounded very angry. Rimmer understood why. He glared at Lister. Hippolyta. No, Lister. 

"Fix it, Lister. Now." 

"We've tried, Rimmer! We've tried! But it ain't workin'!" 

"Then get Kryten! He can fix it!" 

"Good thinkin', man. Hold on..." He crossed over to the cockpit, to call Kryten up to the galley. That was when Kochanski came down the stairs. She was wearing a white button up man's shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. She rubbed her eyes and blinked to clear the sleep out, as she gave a huge yawn. 

"What the devil are you all yelling about?" She sauntered across the room to where Dave was standing next to Rimmer. Before anyone could stop her, she ran her hand across his bottom and pinched it lightly. Surprisingly, he swiveled his hips away from her and flinched. "Dave?" 

"Not exactly, no." Hollister's breathy alto voice issued forth from Lister's mouth. Kochanski drew back in alarm, her jaw dropping in amazement. 

"Hippolyta?" 

Lister's face adopted a grin that Kochanski had only seen Hippolyta wear. On her, it looked evil and cunning. On Dave's face, it made him look like a chipmunk with delusions of grandeur. 

Kochanski felt as if her knees lost the ability to maintain integrity. Oops, not a feeling, but reality. Without warning, they gave way, and she sat down on the hard cold floor with an audible thump. She was vaguely aware that Hippolyta, no, Hippolyta's body, was helping her stand up. She found herself staring into deep blue, feminine eyes. Only behind those eyes... 

"Dave?" 

"Yeah. Kris, please don't panic, ok? We're going to fix this." 

"How did you... when... huh?" 

"My thoughts exactly," said Rimmer, who was still seated at the table, trying to regain his grip on his sanity. 

Hippolyta, tired of having the same scene repeat itself, was frankly glad that there were no others on the ship who'd have these reactions. The only one left who didn't know was Kryten, and he'd take it in stride. Then fix it. Hopefully. She marched into the cockpit and said into the intercom, "Kryten, join us in the galley, would you please?" Her voice rang throughout the ship. She did not wait for an answer. She came back into the galley and sat down at the table next to Rimmer. She noticed that he leaned imperceptibly away from her. She realized it was a subconscious thing on his part, but it still stung. She surpressed the desire to take him in her arms and hug him. She knew that that would be of no help at all. In fact, it would probably make it worse. 

"Kris? Dave? Cat? Have a seat. Let's calm down and not panic." 

"Easy for you to say." That was Lister. "I'm a woman now!" 

"Yes, and I'm now a man. I'm as ill-trained to handle this equipment as you are." 

Kryten entered the galley, finally, after several minutes of silence, broken only by deep sighs from Lister. "Yes, Miss Hippolyta? You called me?" He was, of course, looking at her body. 

"Have a seat, Kryten." Kryten swiveled his head to look at the direction her voice came from. He boggled for a moment, then reluctantly sat down at the head of the table, next to Rimmer. "There's been a bit of an accident. Dave and I have switched bodies. We figure it was this watch that did it." She thrust her arm forward, exposing the object at fault. "Now we can't get it to switch us back. Can you take a look at it and see if you can fix it?" 

"I can try." Kryten looked horribly confused. It was a common feeling among the crew, suddenly. All the rage. Hottest feeling in Paris, Milan and Starbug. Hippolyta fumbled for a moment with the watch's fastening, unfamiliar with Lister's thicker fingers. She got it loose, finally, and leaned across Rimmer to hand it over to Kryten. Rimmer sat stiff as a board, not even breathing. Hippolyta felt like smacking him. Kryten, meanwhile, turned the watch over and over, trying to determine where the fault lay. 

"I'm reluctant to take it apart, Miss Hippolyta. If I do, and I can't get it back together, you're stuck this way. Where did this watch come from?"

"I got it off that weird derelict a few weeks back, Krites. You know, the one with all the holes?" Lister spoke up from the other side of the table where he sat with the Cat and Kochanski. 

"Mm hum. Indeed. Mr. Lister, didn't I tell you not to take anything without clearing it with me first?" 

"Don't bother, Kryten. I already lectured him about it. He didn't seem to think it was a big deal." Hippolyta's voice could have cut glass. Lister shrank under her stare. For some odd reason, he felt... more vulnerable in her body. Like he needed someone to protect him. From the big, scary man that sat across the table with homicide in his heart and his face. He shook himself mentally. This was ridiculous. He didn't need protecting! What the hell was he thinking? 

Kryten pushed the button as futilely as Hippolyta had herself a few minutes before. Other than a nice, soothing, eye-easy green glow, the watch produced no results. He looked up. A decision formed. 

"We're going to have to go back to the derelict. Try and find any paperwork or manuals on this particular piece of equipment." 

"But that derelict is three weeks away!" This last was from Rimmer, who couldn't contain himself any more. "Can't you do anything now, Kryten?" 

Hippolyta laid a hand on his forearm. "Rimmer..." she began. He pulled his arm away from her in a violent motion. She took in a sharp breath, shocked. They stood for a moment, staring at each other. Rimmer couldn't believe his reaction. It was such an immediate response, it was almost instinctual. 

"Hippolyta..." 

"It's ok." But it clearly wasn't. This was something that wouldn't easily be forgotten. By either of them. Hippolyta swallowed the lump that was building up in her throat. She found it difficult to let her emotions out while she was Lister. She stored them away for future use. There was nothing else to do. "We go back to the derelict. We can stand three weeks, right Lister?" 

"I don't know if _I_ can," whined Kochanski. "This is beyond bizarre." She took Lister's hand. She felt odd, holding the slim and tapered hand of another girl, but Lister needed her. Lister squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. 

Hippolyta shot a look at Rimmer, who, for his part, felt like a total smeghead. 

Lister suddenly dropped Kochanski's hand and said, "Krites! Remember when Rimmer and I switched? Why don't we just set up another mind enema? Download our minds onto disk and swap 'em!" Rimmer looked confused for a moment, then realized that Lister must have been talking about the other, hologrammatic Rimmer. 

Kryten looked pleased for a moment, but then his face fell. "A brilliant idea, Mr. Lister. With one small drawback. We don't have the necessary equipment to do it. It's all back on the Red Dwarf." 

Lister's face fell in tempo with everyone else's. 

Hippolyta sighed. "Nice thinking anyway, Dave. No, we stick to the original plan. Back to the derelict, and find the manual. Dave, can you do your shift?" 

"Yeah, I feel fine." 

"Ok, then I'm off to bed. I still feel very tired, for some reason... Rimmer?" 

There was an awkward silence as Rimmer stared at his feet. "Yes?" he asked, without looking up. 

"How do you want to work the sleeping arrangements?" Her tone was chill. 

Rimmer blinked, and tried to hide his nausea. Then he said, "Oh. Right. Um. Do you mind taking the top bunk?" 

"No. I'll see you in our quarters." She turned to ascend the stairs. She stopped suddenly and turned back to Lister. 

"Lister. If I catch you playing with my tits, you're a dead man." And she was gone. 

****************** 

_~So. It is done, and they are on their way back here.~ _

~At last. We will soon have it back.~ 

~Yes. Now, my children, I've used too much of our energy this night. You and you and you, sleep. Forever. You and you and you and you and you and you...~ 

****************************************************************** 

**AN:** Chapter two coming soon! What will Hippolyta do? What will Rimmer do? What will Lister do? What will Kochanski do? Can we say het *AND* slash at the same time, kids? I knew we could. Hee hee. *V. evil grin.* 

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	3. Week One

_**Author's Note:** Dedicated/Disclaimed in the Prologue._

********************************************************* 

********************************************************* 

Rimmer continued looking at the floor, not really sure what to do next. His entire world had just been shaken to it's foundations. The woman he loved was now. . . a man. 

Ok, yes. He loved her soul. He loved her body. He loved everything about her. But when those things changed, especially her basic physical specifications. . . he found himself gulping against the bile that was rising up in his throat. He clenched his jaw until the wave of nausea passed. 

"Rimmer." 

Rimmer looked up. Kochanski was giving him the evil eye. "Yes, Kristine?" 

Her arms akimbo, her eyebrow raised, she said, "Rimmer, it's not really my business, but if you have any hope of saving your relationship with Hippolyta, you had better get your arse up to your quarters and apologize to her." 

"I know." 

They stood in silence a moment longer. The Cat and Kryten, realizing that this was a delicate moment, wisely withdrew to the cockpit. Lister and Kochanski watched them go. Lister knew what was going through Rimmer's mind, and he had to do something. 

"Rimmer, she's still Hippolyta. She's still the woman you love. And she's very, very scared. She needs you, man." 

Rimmer looked across to Lister, who was wearing his lover's body. He couldn't stand it, and looked down again. An entire range of conflicting emotions raged within him. Most confusingly of all was arousal. He was turned on by Lister! He swallowed sharply again. "I know." 

Rimmer still did not move. Kochanski and Lister exchanged a glance. Kochanski took a step forward, and laid a hand on Rimmer's shoulder. 

"Rimmer, swallow whatever it is you're thinking of, and go to her. Or she'll never speak to you again. And as we're all together on this ship for a very long time, that would be a disaster. That's an order, Rimmer. Do you understand?" 

Rimmer blinked, trying to gather his thoughts into something resembling rationality. Then, he threw a slightly shaky salute at Kochanski and went up the stairs to his quarters. Kochanski and Lister watched him go, with a sense of dread building up in their stomachs. Finally, Lister turned to Kochanski, a question in his newly blue eyes. 

"What do you think they'll do?" 

Kochanski sighed. "Pretty much the same thing we will, Lister." She turned to him. "I'm not as freaked out by this as Rimmer is, but I also know that this is going to be a very tense three weeks." 

"You're telling me? Is it always this scary being a woman?" 

"I beg your pardon?" 

Lister raised his hands to show them to his girlfriend. They were small. So small, in fact, that he was surprised that Hippolyta could do anything with them. And dainty. Lister had never thought of that particular adjective as applied to his own self. He reached across and brushed a strand of hair out of Kristine's face. She blushed slightly, and ducked her head away from his attention. 

"You see? I can't even touch you without your blushing like a schoolgirl. And I feel all. . . gooey inside. Like I want to pick out drapes and coordinate themes for parties. Do you always feel like this?" 

"No," she answered with a chuckle. "Although I do hear that some men do. One out of ten, in fact." 

"Shut up, Krissy. I'm serious." 

"So am I." They looked at each other for a moment, then collapsed into a fit of giggles. Lister grabbed Kochanski around the waist, and although she gasped slightly, she gave in. Hippolyta was a few inches smaller than she was, so it felt odd to be giving in to someone shorter than herself. Kochanski had never been held by another woman before, and she was surprised to find that womanly curves were ideal for it. She looked down at the woman in front of her. Who also was a man, in some odd sense. The man that she loved. An entire range of conflicting emotions swelled up in her, and she did something that, while not entirely sane, was also very, very deliberate. 

She kissed Lister. She kissed Lister in Hippolyta's body. 

Lister responded immediately, but did not let her control the kiss. He immediately took charge, like he always did, and began kissing her passionately. Kochanski, who had done it on an impulse, almost regretted it. Her senses become very acutely aware that this was a _woman_ she was kissing, and, amazingly, she was turned on by it. She did not break from the kiss at that point, however, and just let herself enjoy this new sensation. She had never kissed another girl before, and had always wondered. . . 

Lister, for his part, marveled again at how good a kisser Kristine was. He began to realize, however, that he was becoming very aroused, and instead of the responses he had felt for over 30 years of manhood, felt an entirely new set of physical reactions. He almost couldn't cope with them, and decided to ask Kochanski whether or not this was a normal, female response. He would definitely have to change his boxers. Panties. Shit, he was wearing women's underwear! 

Before he could break away from the kiss, the Cat came back into the galley, saw the scene before him, exclaimed, "Whoa!" and fainted dead away. 

****************** 

Rimmer stood outside the door to his quarters for a very long time, not having the courage to go inside. Once inside, he'd have to deal with her. And he didn't want to. 

Well, no. That wasn't entirely true. He did want to be with her, but not while she was (irrationally and stubbornly) male. It wasn't that he was intimidated by her as a man, rather that he was terrified that he'd have to. . . touch her. His adolescent fears came rushing back to him in a flood. . . 

****************** 

_"Arnie, you're gay. You know it, I know it. So put out." _

"No! I'm not gay! Just last week, I kissed Stephanie Miller out behind the bins. . ." 

"And she told me you hated it!" 

"Because her breath smelled like cat food!" 

"Aww, c'mon, Arn. Aren't you curious? Not even just a little bit?" 

****************** 

Rimmer put his face against the bulkhead, his forehead beaded with sweat, welcoming the metallic coolness. He hadn't thought of him for years. Why now? Why now? 

****************** 

_"No, I said. No means no." _

"Your mouth says no, but your eyes tell a different story, chummer." 

"Get away from me. I mean it! I'll tell my mum!" 

"And she'd probably say, 'It's about smegging time you realized, boy!' Come here." 

"NO!" 

****************** 

Rimmer realized he was shaking like a leaf. He had managed to surpress this memory for over two decades. And now, of course, as soon as his girlfriend needed him to be the most understanding, he couldn't. Because of Thicky Holden. . . 

****************** 

"Thicky, don't. Please." 

"I won't hurt you, Arn. You're my mate. You're my man. I love you." 

"Like smeg you do. You're horny, and the girls won't give it up. I refuse to. . ." 

But before he could protest further, Thicky's tongue was down his throat. He tried to fight him off, but Thicky had his name for more than one reason. He was too big. Rimmer was too small. Thicky finally stopped kissing him, and Rimmer heard the swishy sound of a zipper being lowered. 

So he did the only natural thing he could. He started to cry. "No. No no no." His protests came in one long sob, the words running together, muffled by his tears and his newly running nose. Thicky ignored Rimmer's pathetic weeping, and began to fumble with Rimmer's belt buckle. Then, his zipper. Rimmer's pants soon lay in a puddle by his ankles, and Thicky gave him a slight push, so he lay face down on his bed, ass in the air. 

It was at that moment that the Head Boy entered the room. Thicky had zipped up fast, but left Rimmer without any time to straighten himself up. 

"What's going on in here?" 

****************** 

It had ended badly, of course. Rimmer had been called down to the Headmaster's office, been given a two hour lecture on, "Unnaturalness and depravity," and had to bear the shame of his family when he came home for the holidays. The Headmaster had sent them a long letter, describing in lurid detail the entire scene with Thicky. Rimmer was beaten unmercilessly by his father, who had only stopped when Rimmer had sworn, through a veil of agony, to never, ever, ever go near another man again. But it hadn't ended there. Oh no. His brothers began to talk. To everybody. Now everybody in his home town, and his school, thought he was gay. Wherever he went, he got both sneers and catcalls, and, occasionally, acceptance and offers of friendship. This last was worse. Rimmer had only ever been interested in girls, and now his entire world thought he was something that he was not. 

Rimmer had had no issues with gay men before that day. Live and let live. None of my business. Not a big deal. But from then on, a horrible feeling began in him. It was called homophobia, and it was ugly. It was beaten into him by his father, taunted into him by his brothers, and scared into him by those men, who, like Thicky, tried to get in his pants. 

And now, decades later, he was faced with the simple fact that the person that he loved happened to be a man. Freak accident or no. She was now a man, and he still loved her. 

He stood up straight again, and tried to walk towards the door again. He found that his feet were glued to the spot. He took a deep breath and tried again. 

Smeg. 

Just as he was about to try for a third time, the door opened of it's own accord, and Rimmer saw Lister, no, Hippolyta, framed in the doorway. 

She pursed her lips together and glared at him. "Oh. It's you. I thought I heard something. Never mind." She turned and walked back into the room, and the door shut behind her. 

Rimmer was galvanized by her tone of voice. He immediately stopped his mind from running around in circles, which kept his feet immobile, and followed her into their quarters. 

She was sitting at the table, with an unlit cigarette in her mouth and a lighter poised halfway to it. Her face was frozen in a mask that Rimmer had never seen either her nor Lister wear. It was indifference. Hippolyta could never quite manage to keep her emotions off her face, and Lister was an open book. But somehow, her soul in his body made it happen. It was an unattractive look. Dead and cold, not giving the slightest clue as to what was going on behind those brown eyes. She glanced at him, then went about her task of lighting the cigarette. 

Rimmer shuddered involuntarily. To see her like this nearly killed him. Especially knowing that it was his behavior that was causing it. He sat down across from her and looked at her. She was intent upon the cigarette in her fingers, and not him. 

They sat in silence for a long time, punctuated only by the slight intake of breath that indicated that Hippolyta was taking a puff of the smoke. They did not look at each other. Finally, she reached across the table and ground out her cigarette. Rimmer cleared his throat. 

She raised her eyes to his, and they looked at each other for a moment. Rimmer tried to maintain the glance, but he couldn't. He heard Hippolyta snort in derision. 

"Hippolyta. . ." 

"Save it, Rimmer. Just save it." 

"I'm trying to apologize, you know." 

"Yeah, well I'm not in the mood. I've had a _fucking_ bad night, Rimmer. You kick me out, Lister switches our bodies, and then you don't even have the balls to look at me." 

"I didn't kick you out!" Rimmer protested. "You left on your own!" 

"Whatever. I'm going to bed. We'll talk later. I'm too mad right now. I might say something you'll regret." She stood from the table and vaulted herself into the unused top bunk. It had no bed dressings on it, so she lay in her clothes. Well, Lister's clothes. Rimmer thought that this was unbearable. He leaned down to his bunk and passed her up a blanket. She refused to take it. "I'm fine, Rimmer. Just go to sleep." 

Rimmer lowered the proffered blanket. "Fine." He began to strip, then stopped himself, embarrassed. She noticed. 

"Oh, for God's sake, Rimmer. I've seen it. I know you better than I know my own body. Literally." Rimmer removed his shirt slowly, then his trousers. He did not, however, remove his boxer shorts, and climbed into his lower bunk. "Lights," snapped Hippolyta, and they were plunged into darkness. 

****************** 

Lister and Kochanski sat in the cockpit with Kryten and the Cat. The Cat was holding an ice pack to his head, and he was mumbling softly about something to do with Heaven. 

Krtyen was eyeballing both "women" sitting in the cockpit. Intellectually, he knew that one of them was Lister. Viscerally, however. . . He was trying very, very hard not to insult the blonde in front of him. It was just too much. He stood stiffly and said, "If anybody needs me, I'll be doing the laundry. Miss Kochanski? Do you have any little thingies that need to be washed?" 

Kochanski rolled her eyes and replied, "Kryten, I put it all in the bin, just like you told me to, last night." 

"Fine. I just don't want a repeat of the Oopsie Incident." 

"Kryten, that was years ago. Let it go, please!" 

"Fine," sniffed the mechaniod. "But if you missed anything, I'm not washing it till next Tuesday. Ok?" 

"Ok! Ok!" 

As Kryten left the room, Lister asked, "The Oopsie Incident?" 

"Don't ask. Just. Don't. Ask." 

Lister stood suddenly. "I've gotta take a leak. Be right back." 

The Cat and Kochanski widened their eyes a bit. She cleared her throat and said, "Uh, Dave, is that such a wise idea?" 

Lister stopped short, an eyebrow cocked. "What, I'm supposed to not piss for the next three weeks?" 

Kochanski pursed her lips, while a sharp burst of air escaped from her nose. She was trying not to laugh. "I guess not. Just don't... touch anything, ok?" 

Lister giggled softly to himself. "I'll try my very hardest, I promise." He stood up quickly, marveling again at how Hippolyta's body responded. She didn't get out of breath just standing up! And he could feel the leg muscles tense, like coiled springs. He wondered what she did to get it like that. 

Lister made his way to the water closet located just to the left of the galley. He was trying very hard to not let his mind grasp the situation. He had to pee. He had to pee, and he wasn't going to think about the plumbing. 

Well, not too much, anyway. 

He closed the door and fiddled with the lock, trying to get her slender fingers to obey his direction. He was having to relearn how to use his hands. It was beyond maddening. He closed his eyes and put those same fingers to the buttons on Hippolyta's jeans. He tried not to concentrate on the skin below them. He finally managed to get the jeans undone, and slid them, along with her underwear, downwards. But when his fingers brushed a small patch of curls just above the pubic bone, his eyes snapped open in shock. 

With his pants around her ankles, Lister turned and looked into the full length mirror to the left of the wash basin. Forgetting the promise he made to Kochanski just moments before, he hobbled a foot and a half and stood inches from the mirror's surface. 

Reflected back at him, instead of the chubby, brown man he was used to, was Hippolyta. It felt like he was seeing her from the outside again. Only he really wasn't. He was staring at the curve of skin that slowly, coyly disappeared between her legs, topped by a tangle of fine, light brown hairs. He blinked, hoping that he could shake himself out of this. He couldn't. It was just too damn erotic. 

Slowly, gently, he pulled the shirt she had been wearing up and over his head. Seeing only an expanse of smooth, white stomach, then the bottom of her flesh colored bra, then the soft curve of her shoulders, then the shirt was on the floor. He stepped out of her fuzzy purple slippers, then shook out of the pants. He stood in front of the mirror wearing only a bra. He slowly moved her hands up her thighs, skirting the forbidden area, across her stomach, and snaked them behind her back. He wasn't even thinking clearly. His hands were moving of their own volition now, and he was faintly surprised to notice that his fingers, which only seconds before had trouble with the simple door lock, were expertly unhooking the bra. His shoulders shrugged subtly, and then the bra joined the other items on the floor. 

"Holy. . ." 

His fingers moved forward, touching the cold mirror where her breasts were reflected. 

Lister had never thought of Hippolyta as a girl, really. She was tough. She was the consummate tomboy. And she was firmly in love with Rimmer, which in his mind made her absolutely bat-shit insane. Besides which, his obsession with Kochanski made him blind to anybody else. Even this perfect woman, reflected back at him. 

Hippolyta's long blonde hair was tickling his back, sweeping along his shoulder blades every time he took a breath. He stared at her chest, watching her flesh straining with every little movement. He took a step backwards, away from the mirror, trying to break the spell of her naked body. He found himself caught up in the way she jiggled, the way her skin rippled and shifted with the step. 

He took a deep breath through his nose, and saw her chest heave, her breasts jutting out even more noticeably. Her nipples were standing up, pink and crinkled and inviting. He moved his hands up and pinched a nipple. 

And gasped at the subsequent feeling. A strange feeling, he felt as if his insides were suddenly turned to jelly. He could feel his abdomen writhe, and even stranger, he could feel the gentle pinch in between his legs. Like it was connected to her. . . ahem. . . button. 

_No, Lister, the word is clitoris and you've been obsessed with them since you were 14. Now you've got one, and you call it a button?!?_

Lister shook his head at his sudden prudery, and watched as her (his!) hair swept across him, momentarily curtaining his breasts. He played for a few moments longer, making his hair sway back and forth across him. He reached a second time for the nipple, and began kneeding it gently. The feeling was stronger this time, and he began to enjoy it. Now he knew why Kochanski was so indulgent of his manhandling of her tits! If it felt this good, no smegging wonder! He used both hands now, massaging each nipple, pinching them, using them to make his breasts bounce up and down to a rhythm in his head. He grinned at the image in the mirror, enjoying the show. 

He ran one hand up now, running it through the waves of yellow hair, feeling the softness, catching a momentary whiff of rose shampoo and nicotine. One hand, so entangled, did nothing to stop the other hand from drifting downwards. 

His forefinger grazed his clitoris, and Lister was almost driven to his knees at the intensity of the sensation. He sank down on the floor, his bottom upon her jeans, feeling the rough fabric rubbing against his skin. He began to move his finger in a circular motion, struggling to find the magic spot a second time. He found it. He could feel a small bump, and used that to guide his fingers. With each pass, he increased the pressure just a little bit more, and was rewarded with a tingling, an itch that could just barely, almost be scratched. His lips opened, and he moaned softly. It was as if he had no control at any point in these proceedings, and the ensuing pleasure was just a side effect. He wasn't conscious of his shudders, or his gasps. He was only barely conscious of his actions. Somehow, it was almost as if someone else were doing it. . . Just beyond the range of his hearing, he could hear a subtle buzz, but was so intent upon his masturbation that he ignored it. But then, having put a word to his activities. . . 

_What the smeg am I doing? I'm masturbating in Hippolyta's body!_

He wondered if this could be considered cheating on Kochanski. 

That thought sobered him, as he withdrew his hand. Kochanski would sure as _hell_ not appreciate this. In fact, if she could see him now, she'd probably kick his ass. And then tell Hippolyta. And if Hippolyta found out about this little session, she'd have a hairy knicker attack. And Rimmer would. . . Well, that did it. The thought of Rimmer having this body (no matter who was inhabiting it) shut him down faster than any thought of angry female retribution. 

And of course, just as he was coming to this conclusion, there was a knock at the door. 

Oops. 

"Lister, sweetie? Are you alright?" It was Kochanski. Of course. 

Lister stood abruptly, and could feel a slick wetness along the insides of his thighs. He'd gotten so into it, he'd managed to turn himself on, and his new body of residence had given him the appropriate response. For the second time. 

Would he feel like this every time he got even remotely aroused? God, he hoped not. 

"I'm fine, Kris! Just, uh, going to the bathroom with me eyes shut is proving to be a challenge!" 

He heard her soft chuckle, and her footsteps moving away from the door. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. He moved to the toilet and started to let rip, then remembered just in time that he needed to sit the smeg down in order to piss. How awkward. How potentially embarassing. He would have to keep a sharp reign on his automatic processes. He started to pee, and as he did, he tried to think of other things that women did that men did not. 

And it hit him. 

Three weeks. He was a woman for three weeks. That's one less than four. And what happened to women every four weeks? 

Holy shit. He would, if all luck was against him, probably end up menstruating at some point in the near future. 

****************** 

Hippolyta awoke suddenly to the sound of running water. She realized that a certain biological urge was making itself known to her. She had to go. This of course wasn't helped by the running water. Who was doing that? 

Oh. Rimmer. Of course. She could see his silouhette against the door of the bathroom, bent over the sink, his hands splashing water on his face. Looking for the world like any normal man, except he was a shadow puppet. Suddenly, she felt as if the walls were pressing in on her, like the bed was spinning as if she were drunk. A lurch of her stomach told her that something was very wrong. She glanced at Rimmer's form again. That shadow lurked, flickering against the wall like some grotesque image out of a bad horror movie. His hands elongated into claws, his profile distorted into the visage of the devil himself. She was suffocating, drowning in the still air of their cabin and his black shadow against the door. She gasped, trying to draw breath, wondering where this was all coming from. 

She saw a vision, then. She saw herself get up, cross to the bathroom, tackle Rimmer, sending him flying into the shower, where the blood would. . . She shuddered against the blind rage and panic that suddenly hit her, as if from nowhere. She felt as if she was going to explode against the torrent of anger that was welling up inside. Why? Why now, just all of a sudden like that? 

She paused, trying to contain herself, trying to control this feeling. Seeing Rimmer, his shadow highlighted on the door, the light of the bathroom spilling into their darkened room, made her nearly insane with violent urges. Was it because he had ignored her, pushed her away, jerked himself out of her grasp? Or was it simply the fact that she was a man now? Was the internal chemistry of manhood making her feel like she wanted to jump off the top bunk and put her fist into Rimmer's ribcage? 

She wondered if all men felt like this. How was it possible? How could a man even get the simplest task done if they were trying not to gut those that they hated? 

Did she hate Rimmer? Inside, deep inside, where she was still a woman, still sane and not frightened by shadows, she screamed a frantic denial. She loved Rimmer even more than she had when they first met. Before her eyes he had bloomed, from a callous, smarmy asshole, to a kind, caring man. Oh, sure, he had his moments. He was still a smeghead, when he wasn't concentrating on the task at hand. But those moments were few and far between now. 

So why? Why did she want to attack him? She heard a voice inside her say, _Because he wronged you. He hurt you. GET him._ She contorted her face, closing her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the sound of her own thoughts. 

Just over the sound of the running water, she could barely make out a subtle buzz, like someone was running a hair dryer just out of the range of her hearing. Like a tap that hadn't been closed all the way, and is whining incessently, driving an otherwise sane person to shout obscenities and grab a large wrench. Subconsciously, she tried to focus her rage on it, push the anger and panic towards it, say to it, "You're NOT going to get me, you bastards!" 

Bastards? Who? 

The buzzing stopped suddenly, and she felt her anger subsiding, like the plug had been pulled. The opressive stillness of the room lifted, and was now simply just stuffy. There was nothing to be angry about. It was just Rimmer washing his face during a sleepless and difficult night. The shadow wasn't sickening anymore. Not even remotely upsetting. 

Nothing to be upset about at all. . . 

She looked down. In her agony, she had grabbed Lister's stained tee-shirt and bunched it in her fists. They were aching with the pressure of fighting off that panic attack. She slowly unclenched them, and was amazed to see tiny droplets of dark blood staining the shirt. Looking down at her hands, she saw that she had cut four crescent shaped gashes in the palms. Her fists were so tight that she had cut herself with her fingernails _through the tee-shirt!_ She was so startled by this last that she cried out. 

Rimmer, of course, heard her, and came running into the room. 

"Lights!" 

They both began blinking in the sudden, stark illumination. When his vision cleared, Rimmer saw Hippolyta staring at her hands, whimpering like a child. She looked up at him with Lister's brown eyes, fear shining in them. 

"Rimmer? Something is. . . wrong. . ." 

Rimmer immediately forgot his fears and worries, and was helping her down off the top bunk, his arms around her masculine waist. He surpressed the revulsion that was engulfing him again. _Now is NOT the time to be a pussy, Arnold Rimmer. She needs you, you hulking coward. Now suck it up and be a man!_ He led her gently to the table and helped her sit down. Without a word, she extended her hands to Rimmer to inspect. Rimmer took them with his own shaking hands and gasped as he looked at them. The blood was hardly noticable against the chocolate of Lister's skin. But it was there, in the unmistakable pattern of fingernails biting into flesh. 

"Did you have a nightmare, Hippolyta? Are you all right?" 

"I. . . don't know. I woke up and heard you in the bathroom. And then I just. . . freaked out. You looked like something out of a monster movie. It all sounds so silly now." 

Rimmer shook his head. "No. It doesn't. Talk to me." His hazel eyes were soft with concern. 

Hippolyta shook her head in turn. "No. Really. I'm fine, Rimmer." She pulled her hands away, and folded them demurely in her lap. Rimmer recognized it as her gesture, but seeing Lister do it nearly made him scream in frustration. 

"Hippolyta, please, talk to me!" He exploded, shocking both of them. 

She took a deep breath in through her nose, and blinked repeatedly. "Oh, I see. I'm to be emotionally vulnerable only when it's convenient for you, then?" 

"That's not what I said and you know it!" 

"Well, shit, Rimmer, I only tried to talk to you in the galley last night, and you didn't want to have a thing to do with me! What the hell am I supposed to think?" 

Rimmer jumped up from the table, his nervous energy propelling him into pacing. "Did it ever occur to you, Hippolyta, that this is extremely difficult for me to deal with?" 

Her hands moved out of her lap, and slammed down on the table top. The sound was like a gunshot. "No, really? It honestly hadn't, Rimmer. Shit, this should be a smegging walk in the smegging park! I mean, I'm only a man! Which would make both of us GAY all of a sudden." 

That did it. It must have been the way she screeched the word gay that sent Rimmer into hysterics. She saw him make a move, grabbing a hardbound book laying on the console by the computer. His arm swung back, and in one utterly thoughtless act, threw it across the room, narrowly missing her head, the delicate pages crumpling as they hit the bulkhead with a fluttering thunk. Neither moved for a long moment. 

The two of them faced each other, he by the bed, she still sitting at the table. He was breathing heavily, and she could hardly breathe at all. The violence of the moment sat before them, pressing down, driving a wedge between them that no amount of talk or love would ever make go away. 

She stood, slowly, her arms raised in a defensive position. Then she crossed to the damaged book and picked it up, hefting it thoughtfully, glancing at the cover. 

"Ayn Rand as a weapon. Well. That's not very original, is it, Rimmer?" 

He gulped. He knew it was her favorite book, and if he had hit her with it. . . Well, _Atlas Shrugged_ came in at just over 1000 pages. And that hard cover. He could have killed her if his aim had been just a two inches to the left. . . 

"Hippolyta." 

"No." The word was leaden, dripping with hatred and scorn. "This is not something that we're going to talk about. Not now, not ever. So here's what we're going to do. We'll avoid each other. For three weeks. Then, when we reach that derelict, I'm going to figure out if it's space worthy. If so, I'm taking it and going. Understood?" 

Rimmer felt as if his world was about to end. She stood there, just beyond his grasp, holding her treasured book, coldly holding his stare with Lister's eyes. 

"No. God, Hippolyta, no. Please. . ." 

She blinked repeatedly, her mouth a thin line of contempt. Rimmer could see that there were tears shining in the corners of her eyes. He could hear himself babbling. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, Hippolyta, don't do this. That ship, you by yourself, you could be killed. . ." 

"And flying books wouldn't do me in, so that's one mercy." Her voice was shaking, trembling with the fear, the finality of what she had just said to him. She gently thumbed through the bruised pages, smoothing them absentmindedly with her bloodstained hands, not caring of the marks left behind. Rimmer stared at the rust colored smears along the pages. 

He whispered one last plea, his own tears threatening to escape. "Hippolyta, don't go. I love you." 

"No, I don't think you do, Rimmer. If you did, you'd be here for me, and not throw books at my head." She spun on heel, with the book in hand and was out the door before Rimmer could get to her. 

Gone. Just like that. Gone. 

********************************************************************************************* 

********************************************************************************************* 

_**AN:** Whoa. This is gonna get bumpy, kids. I hope your seatbelts are fastened and your tray tables are in the proper, up-right position. . . _

**TO BE CONTINUED. . .**


	4. Confusion

_**Author's Note:** Dedicated/disclaimed in the prologue. There is a small excerpt from Atlas Shrugged in this chapter, that is used without permission. But it's a very short excerpt... so don't sue me... _

Also, I happened to read today over at www.reddwarf.co.uk that Chris Barrie, on occasion, does indeed read "Various Fan Sites." 

Mr. Barrie, if you are reading this, I would like to take the opportunity to say... 

I'm so sorry. ;-) 

********************************************************** 

********************************************************** 

The corridor of a spaceship is, by necessity, a cramped thing. For every inch of human living space, there must be a corresponding foot of tubes, pipes, wiring, and so forth. The business of keeping one frail and morose human alive in space is something of a technophobe's nightmare. With the advent of computers, everyone involved in various industries thought, "Well, bollux to this! I'm off to the pub to have a pint and let the bloody computer take care of stuff!" This, of course, is so far from the truth as to totally come round the other side. Lies by circumnavigation. Did we learn nothing from Murphy and his Law? 

Whatever can go wrong, _will_ go wrong, you prat. Duh. 

Computers only made the Law expand a bit, as opposed to negating it totally. Which is what some programmers, rather naively, thought. "Hey!" they'd proclaim optimistically, "Look at what we've got here! A machine to think for us! Beauty! Anyone for a quick game of bocci ball?" What most programmers forget is that most programmers can't even think for themselves enough to make the machine understand their instructions. Garbage in, garbage out. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You can't make a computer understand how _utterly important_ it is to not go down at a vital time. 

Vital? Urgent? Important? Those are human emotions, my friend. The amazing thing is not that the bear waltzes, but that he does it so well. 

The computer on the Starbug XX was a moron, compared to Holly's (erstwhile) impressive IQ. Run the biofeedback. Make sure the plumbing doesn't break. Artificial gravity, check, oxygen, check, temperature, check, lights, check. Of course, in order to maintain all these systems, there had to be back up systems, redundancies, auxiliaries. Two life support systems, double the drag on the ship, yeah, but also double the chances of a crew's survival. Not two, but three distinct and separate plumbing systems. Intake, output, recyke. They all three relied on each other to take up slack, get water from here to there and back again smoothly. There was even, most surprisingly, a small hydroponics unit in the lowest level of the hold. The 'Bugs had been designed with the idea that they should be as complete as any mother ship they happened to be stationed upon. The temperature of the engines supplied the warmth, so the delicate plants wouldn't freeze. Light was supplied by expensive lamps, the electricity for which was eked out of the rotation of the self-generating engines. Water? Recyke took care of that. 

The hydroponics bay was a haven of sorts for Hippolyta. Upon discovering it, she had locked it off to anybody else on the ship with the simple expedient of a voice override password. The password was Ayn. She hid it by the simplicity of it's obviousness. She had dragged an excersize mat down there, and a punching bag, suspended from one of the ivy-choked planters bracketed to the ceiling. She would work out there on an almost daily basis. She had no intention of letting herself slip into obesity again. She would shudder at remembering her pre-bording-school weight. She still carried the reminder of it on her bottom. Well, her former bottom, in any event. 

So as Hippolyta stumbled her way through the cramped corridors of the 'Bug, snarling at jutting pipes that barked shins and bruised knees, she headed for the only place where she could have true privacy anywhere on the ship. The computer would tell the rest of the crew where she was, of course, but no amount of pleading or finagling would get her to open the bay doors. She could live off the legumes and tubers there for the entire three weeks if needed. 

Hippolyta may or may not have passed Kryten in her migration, but she was too upset to notice her immediate surroundings. Which was too bad, considering it was her job to notice things. 

Indeed, if she had been paying a bit more attention, she would have noticed a small puddle below one of the plumbing tubes directly port of the 'ponics bay. That meant a leak. A small thing, to be sure. A leak about the size of a period. But even a leak of that size would be enough for impurities to get in, for mold and sludge to grow in the plumbing system. Which would endanger the crew. Even if they got a fresh water supply immediately, flushed all the old stuff out, it would take weeks for the system to be decontaminated. 

The section of the computer regulated to this particular pipe sent out an error report. The report left that section, and made it to the main core, where it would alert the crew to the leak. However, the main core was disconnected from that area of the ship because of Hippolyta's underhanded tampering, due to her need for absolute privacy. 

But that's the way it is. Humans get emotional and miss important things. Computers get buggy and miss important things. 

The obvious parallel here won't be elucidated on. Ok? 



*************

Rimmer wobbled for a few moments after Hippolyta's dramatic exit. He gulped a few times for good measure. He even managed to get his eyelids to blink rapidly. 

Automatic systems all go, captain. Permission to cry like a little girl? 

Permission granted. 

A few tears slid down Rimmer's flushed cheeks, unhampered, unnoticed. He sunk down on his bed, nearly cracking his head on the upper bunk. He didn't notice. He wouldn't have noticed a garbage cannon going off near his ear. He buried his face in his hands and let flow all the anger and frustration that had been building up for the last twenty-four hours. A howl escaped his throat, tearing it, making it raw and itchy. He stood violently, swinging his arms in sloppy arcs, as if had erasers on his fists and wanted to rub out the last day with them. Everything that he had come to rely upon in the last six weeks was gone. She was his entire universe. She gave him the reason to keep sucking air in and out. Well, no. That wasn't entirely accurate. He had managed just fine for over thirty years to do that without her presence in his life. Granted, it wasn't the happiest existence, but he managed. He had his goals, his career. Even though he was a hopeless incompetent, a fact that was rubbed in by every single soul he ever encountered. He grabbed the back of a chair, picked it up, swung it behind his back... and lowered it again, slowly. No, the wholesale destruction of their quarters wouldn't help a damn thing. It wouldn't even make him feel better about his bruised male ego. 

He continued his pacing, his cry, determined to go after her, holding back and fearing her wrath, wanting to apologize, wanting to demand an apology from her. 

His wild, roving eyes fell upon one of her shirts, discarded in the corner. He had always teased her about the lack of care that she took in her clothing. She didn't seem to care too much if a hastily removed article ended up tossed in the bin or the floor. Her excuse was always that Kryten would be more than happy to clean up after her. 

His tears slowing their pace, Rimmer bent forward and retrieved the shirt from its corner. It was lavender in color, much like the rest of her wardrobe. Lavender was her favorite color, he recalled. And her favorite food was pasta, and her favorite author was Ayn Rand... 

This, of course, brought on a fresh paroxysm of tears, as his memory brought forth the astonished and frightened look on her face as he heaved that book at her head. 

He wasn't sure what had caused him to do that. It was as if his arm was possessed. Somebody else had thrown that book. It wasn't him. He had had no rational control over his limbs when he'd done it. 

But no. That was the cowards way out. He had done it. Nobody else to take the blame, not this time. 

Rimmer was caught once again by the absolute that, no matter what, everyone must deal with the consequences of their actions. He was no different from the rest of the universe. It was his fault she was gone. His fault. Forever his fault. And if she died aboard that derelict three weeks from now, there would be nothing to absolve him of her death. 

He lifted the shirt to his nose, inhaled softly, taking in the scent of what her living presence had imbued in that shirt. He could never quite place the smell of her. It wasn't perfume, as he had found out shortly after their first night together. He had asked her what scent she wore, and she had responded with a throaty laugh. She had confided in him that she never wore perfume, only soaps and shampoos. Since then, he had tried to guess what her scent reminded him of. Tied for first place now was the beach and lavender. 

Lavender clothes, lavender soap. If he was into that sort of nonsense, he'd say her entire aura was lavender. But that was silly. No, she was as undefinable as her smell. Intransigent, passionate, willful, smart, beautiful and so much more than the sum of those traits. 

Rimmer came to the realization that she couldn't be serious. She wasn't going to leave the ship. She wasn't going to vanish into the vastness of space without him. Yes. He was going to get her to change her mind. 

But how? 

This was beyond an ordinary lover's squabble. He had threatened her physically! He could not imagine her taking that sort of nonsense lying down. In fact, he was damn lucky that she hadn't just broken his neck. As a friendly warning. 

Wait, why _hadn't_ she killed him? Could it be that she couldn't bring herself to do it? 

Rimmer, for the billionth time, felt like a total heel. She could have kicked his ass with one hand tied behind her back and not broken a sweat. She hadn't. While he, being the raging asshole that he was, had stayed at a safe distance and lobbed Objectivism at her. 

Any court would hang him. 

An interesting sensation began in his stomach. It was more than cowardice, more than guilt, more than rage. It was all of these things together, with an undercurrent of resentment thrown in for flavor. 

Yes. She had indeed had a bad night. But did that give her the excuse to shut him out? 

He lowered the shirt from his face, and his eyes clouded over, thinking of things that she had done over the last six weeks that would drive any self-respecting man to the brink of abuse. Of course, Rimmer wasn't too long on self-respect, but that was neither here nor there. She was manipulative, cold, abrupt. Any whim of hers, he bowed to. And her temper! Rimmer had found himself shocked one evening upon hearing her cuss a blue streak a mile wide. She had gotten in a tiff with Kryten, and she called the mechanoid names that Rimmer, in his long years as a spacer, had never even heard. And mercurial! Holy smeg, the girl changed her mind faster than she changed her socks. He wondered why she had ever been commissioned. Even Frank Hollister should have seen these traits in her. 

His hands began worrying the blouse. He felt the fabric give just a little bit, begin to tear, but didn't really notice. 

Just who the hell did she think she was, anyway? Why was he so worried that she was going to leave? Good riddance to the little bitch! 

He heard a faint buzzing, but put it down to the overhead lamp. Damn fluorescent bulbs! 

A tiny kernel of himself remained true, however, and railed against this line of thought. No! No, not her! Me! All me! All my fault! 

The shirt under his fingers was suddenly in two pieces, giving way with a distinct, loud tear. 

The buzzing of the lamp got louder suddenly, and he felt his shoulders hump against the noise. He stood staring at the ruined shirt for some time, lost in the "hows" of the act. How in the smeg did he find the strength to rip a shirt in half like that? And how did he not notice it was happening? 

It was in this posture that Lister found him. 

Lister didn't even bother to knock on the door to Rimmer's quarters, a habit from the old days aboard the Dwarf. He realized his mistake immediately upon seeing the expression on Rimmer's face. 

Lister had come up here to see if he could have a few private words with Hippolyta. He _really_ needed to know if he was going to get his period in the next three weeks. 

"Sorry, Rimmer. Is this a bad time?" 

Rimmer didn't respond right away, just stared at Lister for a long moment. Lister shifted his feet uncomfortably. Then, Rimmer dropped the... thing... he was holding and took a hesitant step towards Lister. 

"You could say that, yes." 

Lister saw the madness in Rimmer's eyes and took a quick step backwards. Again the femaleness of his current body made itself known, and some instinct told him that to be near this man at the moment was not conducive to good health. He heard the overhead light buzzing gently, and was vaguely annoyed by it. 

Rimmer moved forward again, lurching like the monster that Hippolyta had thought he was just minutes before. He almost looked like he was drunk. Or was suspended by a puppeteer's strings. His limbs had that same disjointed quality to them. 

"Well, I'll come back later, then. I was looking for Hippolyta anyway..." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Lister knew that they were exactly the wrong thing to say. 

"OF COURSE YOU WERE! Everybody is always looking to her, looking for her, or looking at her!" Rimmer was screaming, his eyes bugging out, his face flushed with rage. "Been with us for a smegging six weeks, and you're all infatuated with her! She's MINE, do you hear me? MINE!" Rimmer leapt forward, closing the distance between himself and Lister easily. Lister tried to back off even further, but Rimmer was too fast. Rimmer grabbed Lister around his fragile shoulders. Lister tried to twist away, amazed at Rimmer's sudden brutality. 

_Where the smeg is Hippolyta?_ Lister thought frantically. 

Rimmer hauled Lister bodily into the cabin, and the automatic doors swooshed shut. To Lister, it was the sound of doom. He couldn't even begin to tap the reserves of strength that Hippolyta's body had. He had no idea how. He suddenly regretted that he hadn't spent more time on keeping himself fit. 

The buzzing of the lamps got even louder. 

Rimmer bent his face inches away from Lister's. "You may look like her, but you're not her. Didn't you know that I'd be able to tell?" Rimmer's hand flew back and delivered a stinging slap to Lister's face. 

Lister's head snapped around from the blow, his cheek stinging, his eyes beginning to tear up from the pain. _This isn't happening!_ he thought, disoriented. Amazingly, he felt Rimmer's grip on his shoulder loosen, then release. 

"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me, Hippolyta!" 

Holy shit. 

Before Lister could really process the idea that Rimmer thought he was Hippolyta, Rimmer wrapped his arms around him. He lowered his face and said in a whisper, "I love you." 

And kissed him. 

It was beyond shocking. Rimmer had his tongue down his throat! He tried to struggle. He slowly came to the horrific realization that his body was responding to this kiss. Those wonderful gushy sensations, those fabulous tingling moments, were becoming more and more persistent because Rimmer was kissing him! 

Lister was in mental agonies. To fight it off? To give in? He honestly couldn't make any sort of rational argument for either, at the moment. To hell with rationality then! 

Lister's knee came up in a spasmodic jerk, and nailed Rimmer right in the groin. 

Rimmer's mouth snapped shut, nearly taking Lister's lips off. Rimmer's arms released their grip on Lister's waist, and Lister used that opportunity to jump backwards. Rimmer slowly sank to his knees, his hands clutching his crotch, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes. 

The buzzing stopped. 

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, both poised to flee. Rimmer took in a deep, shuddering breath and said, "Holy smeg, Lister. What the hell just happened?" 

Lister started forward cautiously, still staying out of Rimmer's immediate vicinity. "I was hoping you could tell me, man." Lister gave a small nervous chuckle. 

Rimmer sat down on the floor, then slowly measured his length across the floor. He laid on his back, eyes shut, hands cupped over his joy department. Lister shuffled timidly forward, still making sure his legs weren't within reaching distance. Eventually, he stood right next to the prone man, and seeing no evidence of movement, he crouched next to him. 

"I'm sorry, man. But you were..." 

"Kissing you. I know. Let's never speak of it again." Rimmer did not open his eyes while he said this. 

"Well, you're not a bad kisser or nothin'..." said Lister sheepishly. "You're just not me type, ya know." 

"Lister, are you trying to tell me that you're not that kind of girl?" 

Lister snorted. "Are you gonna be ok?"

"I'll live. You pack a mean wallop, Lister." 

"Yeah, well, I never thought that I'd ever kick a fellow man in the balls for protection from rape." Lister realized the absurdity of the entire situation, and began laughing. Softly at first, then louder, then his body was shaking, and soon he was laying next to Rimmer, howling with laughter. 

Rimmer managed a soft chuckle, then winced as his stomach reminded him that he'd just been kicked in the jimmy. He finally managed to open his eyes, and turned his head to look at the Scouse bastard who happened to be wearing his lover's body. He tried to remember why he thought it was Hippolyta in there, but his motivation was ebbing away, lost in his immediate pains. 

"Did you just say I was a good kisser?" 

Lister stopped laughing suddenly, and blushed furiously. "Yes," he mumbled, sitting up. 

Rimmer smirked. "Lister, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you enjoyed me shoving my tongue down your throat." 

"Shut up, Rimmer. Wait till you're a woman, then we'll talk!" 

"Well, unless I happen to switch bodies with Kochanski..." 

Lister groaned. "Don't even think that, man. Isn't this enough trouble for one lifetime?" 

Rimmer nodded, slowly sitting up next to Lister. They sat for a moment, trying their very hardest to repress all memory of tonight's encounter. 

"Rimmer, I really did come here to talk with Hippolyta..." Rimmer winced at Lister's reminder. 

"I have no idea where she is, Lister. We had a bit of a fight, and..." 

"Oh. Smeg. Well, we better go find her." 

They stood, Lister giving Rimmer a hand up. They moved to the door, to try and hunt down the woman who was supposed to be in that body. Neither commented on what had happened in this room tonight. It was the silence of mutual fear and disgust. 

But Lister was remembering The Dream, where he had kissed Rimmer, and was amazed to discover that he had enjoyed it when it happened for real... 

Being a woman could take the smeg. 

*************

"Bastard!" Thwack. "Jerk!" Whump. "Smarmy, stuck up, incompetent..." Swish "crap" ploof "ASSHOLE!" 

Hippolyta was struggling to get Lister's body to work properly. She had been amazed to discover that Lister couldn't even do _ten lousy crunchers!_ And his arms! They had no tone, no aim, no power! His fists were like jelly, his legs like tapioca pudding. The man was beyond a wreck. 

She shuddered to think what he would do to her body in three weeks. 

So she'd started small. She didn't push too hard, but she didn't stop at the first sign of discomfort either. If she was stuck as a man for three weeks, then bigod, she would get it into shape! She had to be ready for anything. And that meant that she would have to start over from the beginning. This body had over thirty years of bad habits. She could feel a small twinge in her knees, and knew that if Lister didn't lose a few pounds, he'd have arthritis in them by the time he was forty. His gut was enormous. And all those vindaloos! 

But most frightening of all was the total lack of control that Hippolyta had trained into her... former body. If she didn't concentrate, her gut would stick out, her spine would slump, and her feet would turn outwards. 

NOT the best fighting posture in the universe. 

After the first set of sit ups, (a grand total of ten reps, which left her sore and shaking...) she did a few push ups to see what his arms were capable of. Not a damn thing. She felt her triceps buckle under the weight after the first six. She tried to keep going, and found that, for the first time in over a decade, she simply couldn't make her body obey her. 

She pounded her fists on the mat in an impotent rage, screaming incoherently. She tried bouncing to her feet, to kick a few things while she was at it, and found that she was sent back to the floor when her thighs and back protested vehemently. She screeched again, forcing herself into a standing position after several long seconds. She started in on the bag that hung from the ceiling, hoping for a release there. 

Lister couldn't even make a fist properly. 

**"AAAAAARGH!"**

So with the heel of her palm, she went at the bag, and her expletives weren't aimed solely at Rimmer... 

Finally, with an exhausted whimper, she sunk to the mat and hugged her knees. She rocked back and forth on her haunches, nearly crying with frustration. 

She realized she must have looked a total fool, a grown man (sort of) sitting and whining because she couldn't excersize properly. She exhaled sharply and got to her feet again. She reached for her bottled water that she had left on the side of the nearest planter. 

It was gone. 

She spun about, wanting to make sure that she was alone, that the bay door was closed. The door was indeed closed, so that wasn't it. She stopped moving for a moment, not breathing, straining to hear any sort of give away movement. 

There. Behind that other planter. Slowly she crept forward... 

She burst through the overgrown ferns, her hands grabbing a silk collar of magenta... 

"Cat! What the smeg do you think you're doing in here?" she asked as she let go of the suit. 

The Cat stood up sheepishly, his hands automatically smoothing out his lapels. "I came in the usual way." He gestured at a vent about six feet off the floor on the other side of the room. 

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "The usual way? You mean to tell me that you've been in here before?" 

"Hey! This is my number one, primo napping spot! Just 'cuz you need to get your Rambo on once in a while..." 

Ah, of course. He'd found a "Sunny Windowsill" after all. She threw her hands in the air. "You've watched me work out in here?" 

The Cat grinned at her in way of response. 

She put her hands on her hips, remembering her habits. Oh, God, please, no... "Cat, sometimes I don't wear a whole lot while I'm in here..." 

"Don't I know it!" The Cat waggled his eyebrows at her. "Blondie, you're lucky that I'm not a jealous creature, otherwise I'd have to kick your arse for being the most beautiful creature on this ship!" 

She stood there looking at the Cat, her mouth open, not able to process it. 

"You utter bastard," she whispered finally. Then, her face cracked an insane grin and she said louder, "You utter, complete, totally and without a doubt bastard! You snuck by me! You're the first to do that in a long while!" 

The Cat grinned happily, not realizing his immanent doom. 

She continued grinning. "If you do that again, I'll rip your nutsack off with a plastic spork and force feed it to you stuffed in a raw space weevil. _THEN_ I'll get angry. Understood?" 

The Cat's grin froze in place. His eyes widened. Then he mutely nodded. 

"Good. I'm glad we came to that little understanding." She turned her back on the Cat and said, "And don't take my water again. I need it."

The bottle magically reappeared. "I'll just be going now..." 

"Nah. Stay. I don't mind if you come in here, Cat. Just let me know you're coming, ok?" She sat on the mat, grabbing her water bottle and taking a deep swig. She patted the mat next to her. "Have a seat." 

The Cat glanced around nervously. 

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, sit the smeg down. I'm not really mad, Cat. Honest. You just startled me, is all." 

The Cat blinked a few times, then sat down reluctantly next to Hippolyta. He moved like a cat, of course, and seemed to melt into a casual lounging sprawl. Hippolyta was trying to get her legs into the lotus position, but finally gave it up and settled for a W-seat. 

"Has Lister always been this hopelessly out of shape?" 

"Chipmunk Cheeks? Oh my God, you have no idea. Once I saw him get winded just getting out of bed!" 

She shook her head. "Well, as long as I'm Lister, I might as well give him the benefit of my 'Rambo' as you so aptly put it." 

The Cat wasn't really listening, of course. His eyes were roving the bay, and happened to land on her book that lay reverently on a nearby watering tube. "What's that?" 

She raised an eyebrow again. "It's a book." 

The Cat scoffed. "I know that, Blondie! I mean, what book is it?" 

_"Atlas Shrugged."_

"May I?" 

Hippolyta smirked and shrugged. "Go for it." The Cat reading Ayn Rand? The universe could only handle so much... 

The Cat grabbed the thick hardcover tome, grunting at it's weight. He opened the book to a random page and read out, "Dagny let the paper slip to the floor. She sat, bent over, her head on her arms. She did not move, but the strands of hair, hanging down to her knees, trembled in sudden jolts once in a while. The great chords of Halley's music went on, filling the room, piercing the glass of the windows, streaming out over the city. She was hearing the music. It was _her_ quest, her cry." He closed the book and looked at Hippolyta with a sneer. "You like this?" 

Hippolyta didn't answer right away. She was hearing the fictional music in her mind. The swooping grandeur of the greatest composer ever to walk the earth. Unreal. Totally false. She slowly looked over at the Cat, tears rolling down her cheeks, the first she had managed to produce since becoming a man. They burned hotter than any other tears in her life. "Her quest. Her quest is to find the man that she loves, you know." 

The Cat quirked his mouth, and put the book down. He was very uncomfortable around tears, being totally incapable of shedding them himself. I mean, really! How uncool! Crying made your eyes all red! And red with this suit? Hell no! 

Besides which, seeing Lister cry, even if it was really Hippolyta, was enough to make anyone freak out. 

"Look, if you're gonna snivel, I'm outta here!" The Cat was on his feet, the book dropped, and was up and out the vent before Hippolyta could say another word. 

She let the tears continue, not caring that she had lost it in front of the Cat. The book lay just inches from her, so she bent forward and grabbed it up, and opened it to another random spot. She tried to read through the tears, but just couldn't manage it. A fat tear slid down her nose and splooshed on the page. She wiped it away, only to be rewarded with a slight smear of ink and more wet on the book than before. She closed the book and lay it down gently. She was still hearing Halley's fictional melodies ringing in her ears. Many minutes passed, and she didn't even notice the numbness spreading through her legs from too long in that position. 

Somebody started pounding on the door. 

She jerked upright, wiping the tears away with her sleeve. She knew that they would find her eventually, but she hadn't expected it to be this soon. She guessed that the Cat had ratted her out. Stupid thing! Wondering if there were indeed any sporks on board, she called out in a shaky voice, "Who is it?" 

"It's me, Hippolyta." It was Lister. She gave a quick sigh of relief, and tried to stand to open the door, forgetting her promise to herself to open it for no one. Her legs were tingling, having fallen asleep a while back. She limped painfully to the door and opened it. 

There was her body, in all it's glory. However, standing in the shadowed corridor just beyond was someone that she didn't want to see at all. 

"Go away, Rimmer." 

"No." He stood with his arms crossed, a look of pure anguish on his face. Her heart almost melted, then she remembered his attack on her. 

"I'm dead serious, Rimmer. Fuck off." 

"No." 

She took a warning step forward, intent on strangling him, when she felt a hand on her forearm. Lister looked up at her with her own blue eyes and said, "Let's go inside. He doesn't have to come with us." 

If Rimmer thought about protesting, he obviously thought better of it, for his mouth opened and shut with a snap. Hippolyta nodded. She and Lister moved into the bay, and the automatic door shut behind them. Rimmer couldn't come in now, not unless he guessed her password. And even then, the moment he set a foot in the room, Hippolyta would gut him. 

"What happened?" asked Lister with his characteristic bluntness. 

Hippolyta crossed to a planter box and sat on the edge. "He threw a book at my head. So I told him I was leaving." 

"Leaving? Are you mad? Where the hell would you go?" 

She shrugged. "Take that old derelict..." 

Lister burst out laughing. "You're joking! That ship would never be repaired enough to be space worthy!" 

Hippolyta sighed. She hadn't been serious, really. But Rimmer threw a book at her head! So she struck back in the only way that Rimmer would understand. With cutting, hurtful words. Empty threats and vague denials of his love for her. 

Smeg. Lister, damn his eyes, was right. 

"Fine. I won't leave. But I'm sure as _hell_ not hopping back in his bed anytime soon! Even if I were a woman again. He's in deep smeg, Lister, and no amount of weasley toadying and brown nosing and apologizing will get him back in my good graces!" 

"Yeah, well, I don't think Rimmer is all there at the moment, Hippolyta. I wouldn't be so quick to judge him." 

She stood from her perch, anger flaring. "You like him so much, _you_ go jump in the sack with him. You're equipped for it now." 

Lister blushed and looked away so quickly that Hippolyta jumped to the obvious conclusion. 

"Oh, sweet Jesus God, you didn't..." 

"No!" he blurted out. "No! Not that!" He shuddered involuntarily, remembering his arousal. 

"Then what, Lister?" 

Lister looked at the floor and mumbled, "I don't want to talk about it." 

"Oh, fine. Hunt me down, get all cryptic, then shut up. Way to play hard to get, Lister! You've been a woman for a day and you've got the hardest lesson down," she barked sarcastically. 

"Look, I came down here for another reason, Hippolyta. When was the last time you had your period?" 

Hippolyta, totally nonplussed by this question, couldn't react right away. Then, she rolled her eyes up and started counting on her fingers. "Two weeks ago. Why?" Then, comprehension dawned. Her eyes widened. "Oh, smeg." 

She started to giggle. 

Lister crossed his arms in annoyance. "It's NOT funny, Hippolyta!" 

"Yes it is!" She was having trouble breathing now. "The curse of womanhood, descending full force on David Lister!" Tears were streaming down her face again, for a totally different reason than before. "I'll get you some Midol and a ton of chocolate!" She collapsed on the floor, laughing her ass off. 

Lister waited until the laughing jag had run it's course, then squatted down next to her. "Yeah yeah. Laugh riot, Hippolyta. Did it occur to you that I could really hurt this body? I mean, I have no idea what to do. I could make your body sick. It's been known to happen." 

This sobered Hippolyta immediately. "That is true. I hadn't thought of that." She sighed. "All right. Time for a lesson in comparative anatomy. Strip." 

Lister blinked, his turn to be totally nonplussed. "Now? You mean, like, right this second?" 

"No time like the present, Lister. Besides, this room is even more private than the loo. Nobody's gonna come in." She glanced at the grate above their heads. "Oh, wait, hold on." She removed Lister's flannel shirt and draped it over the vent. "Ok. Now nobody will see anything either." 

Lister came over shy all of a sudden. "But, um. I mean..." 

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Lister. That is _my_ body, after all." 

In the face of this impeccable logic, Lister couldn't argue. He began to remove his clothes. After a few moments fumbling with things, he stood fully naked in front of Hippolyta. It was an odd feeling, seeing his own eyes on the body that he wore. She seemed to be oblivious, however, and she took a deep breath. 

"I assume that you know what everything is called, right?" 

"Mostly," mumbled Lister, not able to really cope with this sudden nudity. 

She gestured towards the mat. "Siddown. We're going spelunking." Lister had to grin at her obvious euphemism. He obeyed her wishes, and sat down on the mat. She crouched over him, laying a hand on his. "Now, I'm gonna guide you as to where the tampon should go. We'll do another rehearsal, mmm, tomorrow, with a real one so you can get used to it when the time comes, ok?" Lister simply nodded, and remained mute. 

She grasped Lister's hand and guided it toward his crotch. He felt something wet and warm and realized exactly where his fingertips were. "That's what you want to aim for. Keep the tampon vertical, perpendicular to yourself. With one finger on the bottom half of the tampon, guide it inside you gently. Don't force it, and try to stay relaxed. Then push up with the finger on the bottom half. You'll know you've done it right when you can't feel a thing inside you. Ok?" 

Explained clinically like this, Lister found his embarrassment vanish, to be replaced with fascination. "That's it?" 

"That's it," she answered, standing up. "There's an instruction manuel in the box too, with pictures and everything." 

Lister stood up, bouncing with the movement. "That's all there is to it? Honestly?" 

"Yep. You'll be fine. Just don't gorge yourself on too much salty foods, ok? I get the _worst_ cravings for salt when I've got my period." 

"Hippolyta, you're a lifesaver!" Without thinking of his nudity, Lister grabbed Hippolyta in a fierce hug. She blinked in confusion, and slowly hugged Lister back. 

Lister seemed to realize the awkwardness of the situation just a moment too late. He pulled away from her, looking up into his own eyes. 

"Sorry. Don't know what came over me..." He was a handsome bastard, that was for sure! He tried to shake away the attraction he felt for the big strong man that was in front of him. This was outrageous! First Rimmer, now his own self! He'd be the slut of the galaxy if he kept this up. 

Hippolyta stared at Lister, her nostrils flaring, her hands clenching into fists at her side. She felt a curious tightening in her trousers, and her entire body seemed to be very insistent that she pay attention to her crotch _right now!_ How ridiculous. Getting aroused by her own body! She wondered if this was the ultimate in egotism. Or narcissism. She had the unique opportunity of being able to love her own self... 

Gah! No no no! This was LISTER! She was in love with RIMMER! And it was her body! 

Buzzing... over there, subtle, insidious. 

Hippolyta gulped, and felt her entire body begin to throb in time with her hammering heart. 

She bent down, and gently laid a kiss on Lister's mouth. 

********************************************************** 

********************************************************** 

_**AN:** Hehehehehe. God, am I evil or what? _

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	5. Explaination

_**Author's note:** Dedicated/Disclaimed in the prologue. And if you were curious as to where I was... well, it's a long, long story. Longer than I can comfortably fit in an Author's Note, anyhow._   


*****************************************

  


When people are under a lot of stress, they can do things that are loopier than a roller coaster.   


The human brain under stress is an amazing study in color. It's true. Get someone who's having a stressful day under a CAT scan, and (ok, little brain, say cheese!) take a picture. It's a rainbow of color, the electrical impulses flowing like water, colored water, oil slicks of insanity and improper thoughts rippling across the pond of the mind. Have you ever seen a soap bubble? The way it shimmers with green-reds and blue-yellows? And just as the colors begin to fade, *POP* goes the bubble?   


When the colors fade in a human mind, it's usually called dementia. It's the sign of a mind that has lost all control. Sociopaths' brains are usually one flat color, with teeny little splooges of a different color around and about for variation.   


The variation is important here. Without some variation, the mind will shut down, caught in a positive feedback loop of it's own devising. This is why some people in comas can have an otherwise active and healthy brain, and yet still remain in a coma. The variation is gone. A healthy brain needs many different paths to follow. Redundancy systems, and so forth.   


This is also why, when in the mid 21st century, "telepathic" software was introduced to the market, people went into comas at a prodigious rate. The software was written to devise a potential customer's spending habits, favorite colors, inseam, preferred prophylactic, mother's maiden name, and so forth, simply by scanning the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. It worked by downloading itself from a few key web sites, without the user's knowledge, and then used miniature wireless cameras to do the actual scanning. CamWhores were the first to fall.   


The code monkey who dashed off this bit of sloppy reasoning neglected to put in any sort end to the program. Eventually, the scans became so intrusive that they actually overwrote the natural pathways inherent in the victim's mind. The victim became, literally, a one track mind, with giant, blinking, neon Nikes permanently dancing through their heads.   


Spam had become deadly.   


The American government slammed down on the particular company (which produced a popular caffeinated soft drink) that invented this software. A little like locking the barn door after the 30 foot tall mutant horse had escaped. The death toll was in the hundreds of thousands. The CEO of the company called it, "A bad investment." But the government now had it's hands on the software. A tool that could totally overwrite the human brain. The experiments began. Military uses were, of course, first on the agenda.   


It was discovered that species who had less of a sense of individualism, like honey bees, ants and prairie dogs, responded well to the scans. Granted, the scans had been designed for the human brain, but they responded fine after some minor tweeks. In fact, in the six beehives scanned with the software, the bees produced more honey, better tasting honey, than their non-scanned counterparts. The ants began building. Temples. With sugar cubes. The prarie dogs invented their own sewer systems. They were the first rodents with flushing toilets. Side effects were mild, and included fatigue, nausea and dry mouth. Many theories abounded as to why. Then, one brilliant boy right out of a college, and not associated with the government, discovered what was actually going on. But before he could publish his findings, he vanished, along with all of his research.   


You see, that bright boy discovered that this particular piece of software was, ironically enough, inducing telepathy in its victims. Real telepathy. Not just reading minds, but able to send their thoughts out, able to fool people with illusions so perfect that reality looked fake. And mental processes that grew in leaps and bounds to accommodate this new talent. Las Vegas was out of business within a year. The government slowly realized that there was a fox in the henhouse, began tracking down the survivors of this technological plague. By that time, most were locked up, vegetables, unable to do anything but drool on their jumpsuits. But a very small percent of these so called Homo Cogitos were out there with their brains intact, able to wreak whatever havok they had in mind. They were rounded up. And, when the extent of their abilities were discovered, they were killed. In the name of national security. 500 people in all, and not all Americans. Oh, there were a few that jumped up on soap boxes, hollered about the rights of the dead, but soon it was forgotten. A new reality show premiered soon after all this, and everybody settled back into their lives. What were a couple of hundred thousand dead, after all, when Keiley DelTorrance was due to be the next World Idol?   


But one girl escaped. She managed to hide her new abilities from those that hunted her. She had hidden herself well, among a very populous city in China. So she lived. She survived. And she did not go mad like those vegetables in the loony bins.   


At least, not at first...   


************************

  


But we digress. We were talking about the effects of stress on the human mind. Right now, Hippolyta was extremely stressed out. If being on a teeny little space ship three million years in deep space with an obsessive compulsive 'droid, a humanoid cat, a thirty year old woman who calls her teddy bear Boo Boo, the love of your life who you need more than air but are currently on the outs with, and another man who's body you currently happen to be habitating in isn't stressful, I'd like to know what is, Mr. Clever Dick.   


So kissing her own body can be forgiven, at least a little bit.   


Lister and Hippolyta seemed to realize what they were doing just as the strange buzzing of the overhead lamps stopped. They stopped smooshing their lips together at the same moment, their eyes flying open, pulling away from each other, a lovely strand of spittle forming a shiny bridge between their mouths.   


Their mutual embarrassment and silence was broken by Hippolyta saying, "You kiss like a Pez dispenser."   


Lister, with goose bumps raising on his pretty naked skin, gaped at Hippolyta. "I what?"   


"You heard. Get dressed." She turned away from him, picking up a discarded bra from the floor. "I believe this is mine."   


Lister snatched the bra out of her hand and began to put it on. He fumbled with it unhappily, while saying, "I do not kiss like a Pez dispenser!"   


Hippolyta shook her head, and turned Lister around to help him get the thing hooked right. "Your head goes back, and you insist on covering my lips entirely. And your tongue is like a slab of meat loaf."   


Lister blinked in consternation. "It is not!" He pulled on the t-shirt, followed by the underpants.   


"And, Lister, for God's sake, put some backbone into your lips, too. Nothing worse than a pair of lips like two week old jello." Hippolyta turned back to the punching bag and slammed into it with a limp fist. She hissed as she heard her knuckles crack. "Also, you're in the worst shape ever. I hate you."   


"Steady on, now! I've never had any complaints from Krissy! And she would know."   


"She's in love with you, Dave. She wouldn't complain. Besides, did it ever occur to you that she's just settled for you?"   


Lister finished dressing, his newly pale skin turning a lovely shade of red. "Shut yer gob, Hollister."   


Hippolyta grinned like a cat. "So we can go back to being slightly indifferent towards each other?"   


Lister snorted. "Just don't tell Krissy about this little session, eh?"   


"Right. Like this whole situation isn't awkward enough, I'll just let her know that I used your body to kiss mine, but don't worry, I didn't enjoy it one bit if that makes you feel any better..."   


"You can be quite the little bitch if you put your mind to it, you know that, right?"   


"No, I didn't know," sneered Hippolyta, her voice dripping sarcasm. "Oh, please, allow me to apologize. I hope I didn't hurt your delicate quasi-male ego, Lister."   


"Quasi?! Bite the weenie, 'Polyta."   


"With relish."   


With that, she turned on heel, and strode out the door to the hydroponics bay, totally forgetting her promise to herself to remain in there in a fit of pique. Guess who was waiting right outside?   


"Rimmer."   


She stopped short, pronouncing his name with a flat snarl. Rimmer, who was crouched on a nearby intake pipe, unfolded his lanky body in one quick, awkward motion.   


"Hippolyta. You came out." His voice was practically giddy with relief.   


"Don't flatter yourself, Rimmer. I didn't come out because you were here. Or even that Lister told me to. I forgot about your existence entirely. Satisfied?" She had the brilliant plan to stride away after seeing the effect her words had on him, her head held high, her eyes conveying contempt and cold cruelty.   


Instead, she felt her right leg slip on something, her borrowed trainers squeaking against the laminate deck, her hips twisting painfully, and she landed in an ungainly sprawl.   


"Um. Ow." Lister was giggling maliciously from the doorway, while Rimmer stared at her wide eyed. She puckered her lips, and took a deep breath through her nostrils. "A little help, guys?"   


Both men reached for both of her arms, and she was pulled into a standing position. She put a hand on her injured bottom. Lister was still giggling. "I hope you get a bruise, Lister," she huffed, rubbing herself.   


"Nah. Don't bruise easily."   


"I do. Watch your back, jerkface."   


"It is your back, you know. Don't get any ideas."   


"Shit."   


Rimmer, meanwhile, was watching them bicker like an old married couple. He got the vague and suspicious notion that something had happened between them in the 'ponics bay, something that caused them to snipe and snark at each other. Before, they were chummy, having a lot more in common than originally thought. Now, though... Rimmer put it down to the fact that she was still rather ticked at Lister for the whole swap thing, and dismissed it from his mind.   


"What the hell did I slip on, anyway?" Hippolyta crouched down, looking for whatever it was that caused her fall. She discovered a puddle of wet. She dipped a finger in it, and sniffed. It smelled suspiciously of greenery and rot. "Water?"   


Rimmer, who was closer, crouched down next to her to inspect the puddle as well. His eyes, trained over the years to find glitches in maintenance systems, followed a thin trickle of water to a pipe on the bulkhead nearby. There was a drop of water beading on the side, and as he watched, it fell to the deck, not even having the courtesy to make any sort of noise.   


"Think I've found your culprit," Rimmer stated. All three bent to inspect the pipe. "This is not a good thing." Rimmer always had a knack for stating the obvious.   


Lister peered closer at the pipe. "This is one of the recyke pipes." He paused for a moment. "We've been drinking this."   


"Definitely not a good thing," repeated Rimmer. "Judging by the size of this puddle," he gestured at it, "it's been leaking for at least 48 hours."   


"Why didn't the computer notify us of this? This is definitely a Life Or Death situation." Lister addressed this to Rimmer. Hippolyta, unnoticed, bit her lower lip, and shifted her eyes away from the leak.   


"Let's get Kryten to run a diagnostic."   


"Good idea, Rimmer. You coming, Hippolyta?"   


Hippolyta didn't answer for a moment, her glance fixed on the wall opposite, her eyebrows forming a cute little consternated V. On Lister's face, it just made her look like she had air between her ears.   


"Uh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming." She shook her head briefly, distracted. She walked down the corridor, Lister and Rimmer exchanging a confused glance as they followed.   


*****************************

  


"Well sirs and ma'ams, I've discovered why the computer didn't tell us about the leak. It's been disconnected from that area of the ship," said Kryten, holding a paper printout of the diagnostic up to the light. (He didn't really need to, what with his android infrared vision, but he found that reading in the dark had the tendency to alarm his human counterparts.)   


"What?! How did that happen?" Kochanski had her hands resting lightly on the operations interface, her fair skin reflecting the computer's reddish glow of something gone horribly wrong.   


Hippolyta sat in a hunched posture outside of the cockpit. She was unconsciously biting her fingernails, a habit that Lister had when he was feeling nervous. She waited for the android to pronounce her guilt.   


"I'm not exactly sure, ma'am."   


Hippolyta exhaled in a whoosh, a deep sigh of relief. She had a reprieve. Kryten continued, however, causing her to hold her breath again.   


"It appears that that entire portion of the ship, from mark 955 to mark 1015 is currently off limits to the self-regulatory routines."   


"In English, Kryten?" sneered Rimmer.   


"Somebody put the Hydroponics bay and the surrounding corridor in a computational blind spot. One of us hacked in and, basically, screwed the pooch."   


There was a pause, while everybody thought about that information. Then, as one, they turned to the person sitting outside.   


Hippolyta looked at them all, catching the anger and frustration on their faces. She lowered her hand from her mouth. "Fuck me," she said simply.   


"Already have done," exploded Rimmer. "What were you thinking, Hippolyta?! How could you do that?"   


"Not to well, it would appear," sniffed Kryten, forestalling Hippolyta's excuse.   


The Cat looked confused for a moment, and said, "Wait a minute. How is the plant place still working if she shut it out of the thingo?"   


"Because I made sure of it," said Hippolyta. "I thought I'd got the code right for the other thing, too." She paused. "I'm sorry, everybody. I goofed."   


"No, really?" Rimmer strode out of the cockpit, stood over Hippolyta. He looked furious. Hippolyta couldn't blame him, really. But she was just as furious at him, for everything else. Rimmer had a funny looking vein throbbing on his forehead, and Hippolyta had gathered Lister's big hands into tight fists. The rest of the crew gathered round. This was going to be a show stopping row. They were all so entranced with the WWE-like action that they failed to notice the buzzing coming from the cockpit.   


"Rimmer, don't start with me..." she threatened, looking him right in the eyes.   


"That's the problem, I already did," he spat. "You've done nothing but put me down for the last month and a half, and I'm not going to take it any more!"   


She stood up, placing her nose inches from his. "Put you down?! Oh, right, your standard excuse when things don't go _just_ your way. You smeghead." She turned away.   


He grabbed her shoulder and turned her back. "That's what I'm talking about right there! Calling me names! Damn it, Hippolyta, why won't you let me be a man?"   


She took a step back, and jabbed a brown finger in his solar plexus. "Because you're not one! You're a sniveling little cowardly smegger, who throws books at people he claims to love!"   


Lister and the rest exchanged a glance, fraught with meaning. This was going too far. This was going to come to blows if they didn't...   


Oops. Too late.   


With a scream torn from the bottom of hell, Rimmer leapt on Hippolyta, knocking her over the chair, and wrestling her to the deck. She managed to roll out from under him, and then it was just a blur of legs flailing, arms waving, and cussing. Lister, not even aware of what he was doing, jumped into the melee, trying to get a grip on either one of the combatants. The thought foremost in his mind was to stop it, but when he felt a fist jab into his left thigh, he gave up on that thought and just started beating on whoever he could get his hands on. He managed to get a hold of a shirt, which gave way with an audible rip. He wasn't even sure if it was Rimmer's or Hippolyta's. He peripherally noticed Kryten tenderly trying to split all three of them up. The android was torn. He couldn't actually hurt the humans in his care, but when they were fighting, his programming went right out the window. His pleas for calm were skipping like a badly scratched LP.   


The Cat, meanwhile, had found a bag of popcorn from somewhere, and was watching gleefully while munching away.   


Lister suddenly felt a cascade of ice cold water sheet over him, which had the effect of causing all three of them to freeze, almost literally. They looked up, and saw Kochanski standing over them, a bucket in her hands, which was dripping slightly from the lip.   


"Are you all quite finished?" asked Kochanski, one perfect eyebrow raised delicately. Her voice was considerably milder than her expression. She looked ready to spank each and every one of them, resembling nothing so much as an old maid school teacher who had just received an apple with a worm in it. And the worm had been pulled from a tequila bottle.   


The three on the floor looked terribly embarrassed. They all got to their feet hurriedly, brushing themselves off, dripping sadly. Rimmer's shirt was torn in half, Hippolyta was sporting a nosebleed, and Lister's borrowed hair was knotted and mussed where it wasn't dripping with water.   


"Panic mode cancel. Engage blow dry." Kryten stood near the three doused crew members and began swooshing them over with a hair dryer that popped out of his abdominal cavity.   


"Aww! Officer BeeBee! Why'd you stop 'em? That was classy entertainment!"   


"Shove it, Cat." Kochanski put the bucket down on the countertop nearby with a vexed thud. "The next, and I do mean the VERY next person to do something stupid will be locked in the brig for a month."   


Kryten raised a hand and said, "We don't have a brig."   


Kochanski glared daggers at Kryten. "I'll MAKE one." The others pondered this physical impossibility for a moment, then all began babbling together, trying to explain, excuse, question her authority. She slapped her palm down on the counter. "Shut. UP." Instant silence. Even Kryten's blow dryer stopped whirring at her tone. The crew could hear the echoes of the ship, the pistons firing, every little sound. Kochanski tilted her head to the left and seemed to be listening intently. Lister, Rimmer and The Cat blinked at her.   


"Krissy..." Lister began.   


"Shh. Listen." The others imitated her, cocking their heads around, trying to hear what she did.   


"That's what's been bothering me. That damn buzzing! There it is. Don't you hear it?" Kochanski now began walking in little circles, leaning towards various appliances, biting her upper lip.   


"Damn. It's stopped. Kryten, I think the blender's on the fritz."   


So close, and yet so far, Miss Kochanski...   


"All right. Since some of us here are behaving like children, then you'll be punished like one. Rimmer, latrine duty. NOW." Rimmer, conditioned by a lifetime of obeying a superior officer's orders, skittered away quickly, without question, his metaphorical tail between his legs.   


"Lister..."   


"Aw, Kriss..."   


"Don't 'Aw Kriss' me, chummer. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. Get me?"   


"Yes'm." Lister shrunk away, wondering where this side of Kochanski had been hiding all this time.   


"Start scanning for an asteroid or planet nearby with fresh water. Or frozen will do. We need at least 40 cubic decaliters to flush the system out. Move." Lister moved.   


"As for you, Hollister..." Kochanski let her voice trail off threateningly. Hippolyta waited for the sentence.   


"You put everybody's life on board this ship in danger, for no better reason than a modicum of privacy. It was wreckless, stupid and above all else insane." Hippolyta nodded, but didn't look the least bit repentant.   


Kochanski continued, "You have precisely 1 hour to fix your shitty coding. And when I say 'fixed,' I mean put it back _exactly_ as it was before. If it can't be done, then you have that same hour to code up an entirely new system. If _that_ can't be done, then you'd better pray to God that Lister's spacesuit doesn't leak."   


"What?" shrieked Hippolyta, not believing what she'd just heard. "You wouldn't DARE space me!"   


"No, you dizzy bitch. You'll be Outside, installing new plumbing by hand. Clear?"   


"Crystal," snarled Hippolyta.   


"So what are you waiting for? Your hour started 2 minutes ago."   


************************************

  


At the end of 45 minutes, Hippolyta stopped trying to debug the system, and instead simply went and checked Lister's spacesuit for seal leaks. She'd come to the obvious conclusion that no programming whiz, no matter how cocky, could fix this system within an hour. For one thing, the programs were set up in such a way that it took at least ten minutes to verify access, and then another ten to verify the verification. That's twenty minutes gone right there, and not a scrap of coding had been done. Then, another twenty to pour over the current system, looking for the precise location of the piece of code in question. There's forty mintues. When she found the code, finally, she realized that she'd done such a good job of making 'ponics bay off limits, that the system wouldn't even acknowledge that it existed.   


Ah, schadenfraude.   


This was a weeks work, at least. It had taken her about as long to screw it up in the first place. Kochanski was right. An entirely new recyke system would have to be brought on line. That meant replacing a good deal of the hardware first. Then duplicating the software, minus the bad code of course, to get the computer to run it.   


And she had to do it all by herself.   


Resisting the urge to cuss mightily and at length, she stomped down to the storage closet in the bathroom and began suiting up. The modern space suit was a marvel of engineering, roughly on par with an SUV. It was bulky, hard to maneuver in, and took up way too much space when not in use. Still not entirely sure how the plumbing on a man's suit worked exactly, (wait, that poke-y thing goes WHERE?!) Hippolyta fiddled and futzed and snapped and re-snapped for a good ten minutes.   


"Hippolyta? What are you doing?" He sniffed at the end, a habit of his that, until recently, endeared him to her. Now she thought he sounded like an anteater with a sinus infection.   


"I'm putting on a space suit, genius." Her back was to the door, and she hadn't noticed when he came in. She didn't turn to face him, knowing that if she did, she'd punch him.   


"What for?"   


"Because I could use the excersize."   


"What?"   


"Shouldn't you be scrubbing that urinal, Rimmer? Idle hands are the smeghead's playground."   


"Ah. Then you're to be dragged behind the ship in a suit as punishment?" He turned and began scrubbing the implement in question with a stiff brush. "I approve. Say hello to the vaccuum for me."   


She snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye, noting his bucket of cleaning supplies, his bony back bent over his work. "Considering that it's taken up permanent residence in between your ears, I'll let it know that it owes you rent."   


Rimmer stiffened. "Shouldn't that rent be paid to your heart?"   


Hippolyta bit the inside of her cheek, closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten in Esperanto. "If so, then there's a lot of vaccuum out there. I'm rich. I wonder what I'll do with my money? Oh, I know, I'll buy you a pair of balls. Every boy should have some."   


Rimmer flared his nostrils and gritted his teeth. "That's wonderful, Hippolyta. While you're at it, find yourself a Thighbuster. Or, better still, a case of Slim-Quik."   


"I'm telling Lister you think he's fat."   


Even in his ire, Rimmer had to smile at this last. "Well, the smegger is, rather."   


"You know, he can't even go upstairs without getting winded?"   


"Once I saw him get a stitch in his side while playing the guitar."   


"And he gets runner's high from getting out of bed in the morning. It's made the last few days an adventure in altered states of consciousness for me."   


"He's such a slobby goit."   


"When I'm myself again, I'm going to..." she trailed off. "If I'm myself again, he's getting..." She stopped, overwhelmed.   


He put down his brush, turned to her for the first time. "Hippolyta..."   


She held up a gloved hand, requesting his silence. He knew this signal of hers by now, and out of habit, he obeyed. She still had not turned to look at him, this whole conversation done without so much as eye contact.   


"Rimmer, why did you throw that book at me?"   


Caught in the oncoming freight train of her question, Rimmer panicked and did the only thing he could. He told the truth.   


"Because I'm not gay!"   


Hippolyta was genuinely startled. "I never said you were!" She finally turned to face him, her eyes wide with confusion.   


"You did! You said that you being Lister and us being in love..."   


"Would make us... oh." she finished lamely. Then she added, "Who was it, Rimmer?"   


A wild, animal look. "What? Who was what?"   


"Who was it that made a pass at you? A schoolmate? An Io Scout leader?"   


Rimmer didn't answer for a moment. "How did you know?" he asked finally, simply, not denying.   


"Because you were worked up enough by that offhand remark that you chucked a book at _me_, you dork."   


"Oh," he said. "Er. That. Yes. I don't want to talk about it now, really."   


He flinched, waiting for the inevitable explosion, which hit whenever he put her off like this. But she just sighed. "Alright, Rimmer." She picked up the helmet of her suit and tucked it under her arm. "I'm off. Keep a couple reserve tanks in the air lock for me, ok?"   


"The Cat's supposed to do that," answered Rimmer, keeping his silly regulations firmly in place even as his dignity fell to pieces around him.   


"I know that. That's why I asked you to do it." She turned and walked to the door.   


"Hippolyta. Please, be careful."   


She smirked at him over her shoulder. "Plumbing's not so heavy in zero-gee."   


"But a tear in a suit is fatal."   


She nodded. "Ah, but that vaccuum owes me a lot of rent."   


He actually blushed at this. "You started that, not me."   


"Do we have to care who starts it, Rimmer? Can we just care about finishing it and moving on?"   


"Does this mean we're speaking to each other again?"   


"I thought that's what we'd been doing for the last fifteen minutes."   


Rimmer rolled his eyes and grinned again. "Right. Although maybe the first five shouldn't count."  


"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had a good snark-fest in a while." She walked back to Rimmer and put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "Let's get me back into my body, first. Then we'll work on us." He nodded, looking down at the ground, not trusting himself to keep his emotions in check.   


And with that, she was gone.   


*******************************

  


Outside. In space, no one can hear you tinkering. Usually, Hippolyta enjoyed going Out. But when you're Out, trying to balance a 15 foot long pipe in one hand and an extentible waldo in the other, trying to get the latter to grab the former, not to mention that the slightest ill thought movement could send you bouncing away from your perch and scatter your tools away...   


Pain in the arse, is what that was. That's why that sort of work was usually done by 'droids. And while the ship was in dry dock. (As opposed to wet dock. In space. Riiiight.) But punishment duty was supposed to be a punishment, not a smegging walk in the park.   


When she finally managed, after two hours sweaty labor, to get the first pipe into its designated spot, she checked her air supply by looking up and to the left of her faceplate. Thirty minutes left. She was on dead man's time, now. Careless, stupid, inattentive... oh smeg. She placed her tools back in their magnetic box (including that stupid spanner they took from that stupid derelict, stupid Lister...) and crawled her way back to the air lock, some forty meters away. Above her and to the left, she could just make out the bulk of a ratty old asteroid. She could see some ice glistening on the surface. Stupid Lister apparently found their next water source, and had camped out here, waiting for her to get the new plumbing on line.   


She hoped they had a card game or something going, because it was going to be a while.   


*****************************

  


"Good job, Dave. Any thing else on the radar?"   


"Not so much as a chicken, Krissy."   


"Excellent. Now, if Hollister would kindly get her borrowed arse in gear, we'll be back to maximum capacity in no time." Kochanski said this last into the radio that connected Hippolyta to the interior of the ship.   


******************************

Hippolyta snorted. "I'm going back to the airlock now. Can't do any more without a fresh tank." Then Hippolyta muttered under her breath, "You bitch."  


******************************

  


"I heard that, Hollister. You brought this on yourself."   


******************************

Hippolyta was about to make a rude noise very near the radio, when a shadow fell over her. Thinking at first that the asteroid had floated in front of the star that was giving light to the sytem, she turned to look. The asteroid was still firmly to her left. Something else was casting that shadow. But she couldn't see anything. No thing at all could possibly be making that shadow.   


******************************

  


"Sir! Ma'am! Proximity alert just went bonkers!" Kryten slapped the signal that sent the ship into red alert.   


******************************

  


Rimmer looked up from his tenth toilet, starting at the alarm.   


A moment later, all that was left in the bathroom was a pair of yellow rubber gloves and a gently wobbling scrub brush on the floor."   


******************************

  


"What? But all that's nearby is..."   


"They were hiding behind the asteroid! Using it's gravity to mask their own!"   


******************************

  


Scrambling now, Hippolyta switched off the magnets in her boots, running oh so carefully, but as fast as she could, toward the air lock. She was about 6 meters from it when the _thing_ making the shadow revealed itself.   


******************************

"It's a ship! It was invisimode-ing!"   


"Identify!" snapped Kochanski, swinging herself into her navigational console. "Kryten! Identify already, God damn it!"   


"Bring her about, Krissy! Get us away from that thing!"   


"Officer BeeBee, they've got their cannons on us!"   


"Cat, get the garbage cannon ready. Hollister, report! Where are you? Evasive manouvers in ten seconds!"   


******************************

  


"KKKSSSTHHHPPBB-_*static*_-wheeeeeeee...."   


******************************

  


"Damn it, why doesn't she answer?! I can't do anything until she's inside!"   


Of course, this was when Rimmer made it to the bridge.   


"Hippolyta's still out there?!" He grabbed the transmitter from Kochanski. "Hippolyta!"  


"Ri....er.... shit... som.... ind.... of tractor beam... CAN'T MOVE!" This last came blasting through the system, as Rimmer had turned the gain up as high as it could go.   


"External camera 17 on!" Kryten flipped a toggle, and their viewscreen was filled with a gut wrenching sight. Hollister was prone, spread eagled on her back, the dented green exterior of the ship making her stand out like a reverse snow angel. Then, a second figure moved into view.   


A large, hairy second figure. The creature was suited, but stood at least 8 feet tall. Whisps of greasy brown hair had burst out of the suit, making it look like an over-grown Chia pet. It bent down over Hippolyta's borrowed form, tilting its head to one side. They could see its lips moving, as spittle spattered the inside of his face plate.   


"GELF. It's the smegging GELF!" Kochanski snarled. Her hatred of the Genetically Engineer Life Forms was almost as long as Lister's. They were the ones who prevented her from going home to her own dimension.   


Lister, meanwhile, had gone a peculiar oatmeal color. "Oh shit. No smegging way."   


"I think the monkey's about to wet 'em."   


"Shut the smeg up, Cat!"  


"Kryten, you're the only one who can get out there without a suit. Move!" Kochanski shouted this order, while Rimmer and Lister both stared slack jawed at the screen.   


"Certainly, ma'am. After all, I'm only a cleaning 'droid, with no weapon. I'll be sure to win against an eight foot tall mutant with perpetual halitosis."   


"_MOVE!_"   


But it was too late...   


The GELF bent over, scooped up Hippolyta in a fireman's carry, and signalled to its ship. With a tiny, final shimmer, they both vanished.   


And the GELF ship opened fire on the Starbug. 

*******************************************

  


_**Author's note:** So was it worth the wait?   
_

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	6. Week Two

_**Author's Note:** Do I really need to put author's notes at the beginning of each chapter? Is there some meta fan fiction rule that says I must? I don't think it's necessary._   




*******************************************

_~Damn!~   
_

~?~   


~We have been interfered with, loves.~   


~How? How how howhowhowhoooooow?~   


~Those filthy pieces of genetic waste. Remember their taste? Remember how they stung our throats as we stung their bodies?~   


~Garbage! Putrid garbage!~   


~Gather, my children. We strike the rubbish soon to get back what is ours...~   


*****************

  


The Starbug rocked with the blast of the GELF cannon. Sparks flew from consoles, soft bodies (and one large, bulky, hard one) jolted and jerked around, still subject to the laws of Newton and his silly force equals mass times acceleration idea. Primitive, really, if you think about it.   


The GELF were aiming for the main propulsion system, but it was pure serendipity that they took out the secondary life support system as well. Why, they even managed to knock Rimmer unconscious. So, in all, a good day's work for them.   


Satisfied that they had the human they wanted, they gave The Starbug and its inhabitants the V sign (not that anyone saw it, but it's the thought that counts,) and went on their smelly way. Their ship gained momentum, until it was a single, tiny, bright spot among many other tiny, bright spots.   


Grrr-aaackkc-kkkhhh-aa had a long delayed wedding night winging to her through the void.   


*****************

  


Alarms are alarming. They grate on the nerves and eardrums, making everybody in earshot wish that they were as far, far away from the noise as possible. Humans are silly that way. Even more so, because when an alarm goes off, usually the last thing they do is shut it up. First they deal with whatever emergency caused the alarm to go off in the first place, and badly, due to all the racket. Who can concentrate in that din, anyway?   


Alarms on spaceships are even worse, due to the constant knowledge that, when it reaches the alarm phase of emergency, it's usually to late to do anything else but say a Hail Mary and hope the coroner isn't offended by stained under garments.   


The Cat, having almost no knowledge of how emergencies are conducted by humans, did the only thing he knew. He reached up from the floor, groped around on the control panel, and hit the override switch for the alarm.   


The human crew groaned, sore and contused, but alive. Kryten was flat on his back in the doorway to the cockpit, waving his arms and legs. He couldn't get up, much like a turtle can't get up when it's on its back. Turtles, on the other hand, had better shaped heads than Kryten did. Kochanski was face down on her console, disheveled, and not in a pretty, model way, either. A slight trickle of blood wended its way down her forehead. Lister was slumped down in his chair, with a couple of nasty burns on his borrowed face and soot marks on his entire borrowed body. Rimmer was, as mentioned before, unconscious, lolling across the left arm of his chair, looking like a rag doll. The Cat, meanwhile, was keening softly to himself from the floor, tenderly nursing an unrepairable tear across the pleat of his black linen trousers.   


"Krissy?"   


"Ow."   


"Cat?"   


"Leave me alone, dog food breath. I'm in mourning!"   


"Kryten?"   


"Stuh-stuh-stuh-stuh-uck-uck-uck..."   


"Rimmer? Rimmer?"   


"He's out cold, Dave. He's breathing, though."   


"What the smeg just happened?"   


"We were shot, Dave," said Kochanski, propping herself up on an elbow, and wincing with the pain. "Report, please." She wiped the blood off her forehead with her sleeve and peered down at her charred console.   


Lister turned to his own console, finding it totally shattered. So that's how the Plexiglas got into his hand. Picking out the larger pieces, he replied, "Can't. No screen. Cat?"   


"The stabilizer is gone, kerblam! The drive system is gone, kablooie! And life support is on emergency time, kerplunk!"   


"Did we really need the sound effects, Cat?"   


"Stuh-stuh-stuh-stuh-uck-uck-uck..."   


"Oh for smeg's sake." Lister stood on wobbling legs and crossed to Kryten, pushing the 'droid onto his side so he could right himself.   


After he had done so, Kryten slowly lumbered over to Rimmer's station, scooping up the prone second tech. "I'll take Mr. Rimmer to the medi-bay."   


"We all need to go to the medi-bay, but now's not the time. Put him in the galley, we'll take care of him later."   


"But ma'am...!"   


"Kryten, please! We need to get the life support back up, or we're all dead. And, I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be."   


"Well, far be it from me to contradict you, but..."   


"Kryts!" Lister snapped. "Either switch heads and help us, or shut up and help us!"   


"Yes, Mr. Lister, sir."   


_"Yes Mr. Lister sir,"_ squeaked Lister, mocking Kryten. "Kryten, you're reverting, aren't you? Knock it the smeg off, before we all axphyxiate."   


"I can't axphyxiate! I don't even know how to axfix!" moaned The Cat.   


All bickering aside, (which took a good half an hour) the crew soon discovered the enormity of their predicament. Not only were all the major systems damaged, but most of the tools were somewhere in deep space, having been left outside with Hippolyta when the disaster struck. They managed, somehow, to jerry rig the life support systems, on a wing and prayer. They had a guaranteed 72 hours of fresh air, which would, hopefully, be used to get some of that ice off the asteroid. Somehow. If they could even get the landing struts to extend. The trip to the medibay would have to be postponed while they hauled water. If they worked quickly, they would have a hope of survival. Otherwise... well, then it was time to root out any atheistic tendencies and hope that Heaven had lowered their entrance standards.   


Rimmer, meanwhile, was still unconscious in the galley. And he was having the _nicest_ dream...  


*****************

  


Io had been a lush garden moon, once the necessary terra forming had been done and a cold sink had been installed. (A cold sink was much like a heat sink, only working backwards. Central air had nothing on a good cold sink.) Spending his childhood on Io was a blessing for Rimmer, aside from the terrible accident of his family. Io was rather of a swanky suburb of Ganymede, with all the charm and piquantness of any gated community. Trees were plotted, and their holograms were perfect down to the tiniest detail. Even the robotic birds sang in perfect pitch. Oh, sure, real birds might have been better, but they didn't sing Mozart. Besides, with robot avians, air-cars rarely needed to be washed.   


Io had been planned, you see. Not at all like those other messy, disorganized cities back on Earth and Mars. Why, those cities didn't even have proper, timed rainbows! They had to have rain first! How wasteful and utterly unnecessary. So the Founding Mothers of Io had plotted the colony down to the last speck of dust on the last windowsill. Not that there was any dust, mind you. But if there had been dust, it would have been planned to be there. Io was Martha Stewart's wet dream.   


Rimmer had not been back to Io since he was seventeen, when he was asked to leave. Oh, not by his parents. He'd divorced them three years before and hadn't been in touch with them since, really. No, the Mayor of Io herself had called him into her office, and requested formally for the removal of his loathsome self. He didn't fit the mold, you see. He was tall, yes, like all other boys on Io. But it was a rolled out, lanky tallness, totally unlike the healthy, muscular tallness of the other boys his age. He wasn't remotely handsome. His jaw wasn't square, nor were his eyes clear, nor was his hair properly blond and wavy. You understand, don't you, young Arnold? We have an image to uphold here. And you're not it.   


Of course Rimmer understood. He'd long felt that he didn't belong in this community, and it was with a sense of duty bound pride that he packed his belongings and left to join the JMC. It had to be pride, didn't it? Otherwise why would he feel so damn relieved to get away from those interfering old biddies that ran things, with their tea cozies and their yipping lap dogs and their mothball smelling clothes? That hot feeling behind his eyes and at his collarbone had to be pride. To call it rank humiliation would be giving in to what they wanted.   


Yet here he was, casually strolling up the streets of his childhood, his hands in his pockets, whistling a merry tune. Children all around him played hopscotch, and leap frog, and Dance Dance Revolution. The robotic birds played Beethoven's Pastoral when he passed. The 11 o'clock rainbow was shaping up to be the best of the day. Even the air-cars hummed on tune.   


Practically skipping, he tousled the hair of a nearby, adorable little blonde girl (who chirped, "Good morning, Mr. Rimmer!" She could have been in a milk commercial.) and joyfully bounded up the stairs to his mother's house.   


Knocking boisterously, Rimmer rocked back and forth on his heels while he waited for an answer. He heard a cheerful voice singsong, "Com-ing!" from behind the door, and when it opened, there was his mother. Years younger than he remembered her, with twinkling eyes and flour dusted hands.   


"Arnie! My dear sweet baby boy! How are you? Come in, let your mother look at you! I've got sugar cookies going, and there's a turkey sandwich on your name on."   


"Hullo, mum. I'm back from my stint in the corp." The unnatural chipperness was sort of starting to wear a bit thin. Not to mention that he _knew_ his mother couldn't bake, and the only time she made sandwiches, they were invariably cow tongue.   


"Oh, so young and an admiral already." Rimmer squirmed slightly at her glance. He'd told her about his "promotions," all of which were totally false. He felt a moment of shame, which he quickly suppressed.   


"Yes, well. I've retired."   


"Oh. Over nothing bad, I hope."   


"Oh, no no no! Nothing but mutual good feeling all around. I just... uh. I'm. Er. I'm getting married, you see."   


Instead of the gleeful well wishes he somehow expected, his mother's eyes narrowed. "I see. Well, congratulations are in order, I suppose. When is the baby due?"   


"Baby?" exclaimed Rimmer. "What baby?"   


"The only kind of girl who'd marry you without meeting your mother first is obviously one of _those_ girls." She did not elaborate as to what sort other things _those_ girls would actually do.   


"Mum!"  


"No, it's all right, Arnie," she sighed, sounding extremely put upon and long suffering. (All mothers do this.) "I could use another grandchild, I guess. So what is your fiancee's name?"   


"It's..." Rimmer stopped here, and bit his lower lip. "I... can't seem to remember." He knew she was pretty, but for some reason he couldn't remember any other relevant detail. Like her name, or what she really looked like.   


"Oh. Then it can't be that important. Never you mind about her, Arnie. Forget about this marriage nonsense and come live with me. I'll make up for all the times I was mean and horrible to you, I promise." She turned and picked something out of a bowl sitting near the door. "Boiled sweet?"   


"Yes, it is," he answered distractedly. "Mum, I don't think you understand. I'm getting married!"   


"Oh, tosh. Arnie. No, you're staying right here with me and going back to school tomorrow."   


"School?!"   


"Of course, dear. All good eight year old boys go to school and don't get married until they're well grown."   


"I'm not eight years old! I'm a retired JMC admiral!"   


"Certainly you are, dear. Now be a good boy, eat all of your broccoli and go make your bed." With this she turned and tottered, humming, back to the kitchen.   


"She's cracked," said Rimmer quietly to himself. Then he added, "Couldn't happen to a more deserving old bitch."   


He turned and left his house, feeling deeply disappointed. Of course, she'd been nicer to him now than she'd ever been in his life. For a moment, he wanted to turn around, go back inside and eat the broccoli. But he somehow knew that, if he did this, he'd never leave, and this girl he was to marry would be gone forever. If he could even remember her name. Sitting dejectedly on the steps, his chin cupped in his hands, he racked his brains for some detail of this mystery woman.   


"What's the matter, Mr. Rimmer?" It was the young blonde child he'd tousled the hair of a few moments ago. She was standing over him, her head tilted, looking curiously at him.   


"I've forgotten something very important," he answered.   


"Did you try writing it down? I can write. I know all the letters!"   


He smiled indulgently at her. "I bet you do. But no, I didn't write it down."   


"When I forget things, I put a string round my finger. Turns it purple so I don't forget how much it hurts." She laughed at this last. "But you better stop moping soon, or you'll get a ticket."   


"A ticket?"   


"The Pouting Police will write you a big red ticket, and then you'll have to leave."   


Rimmer remembered the Pouting Police. He also remembered the Grumpy Gestapo and the Mopey M-5. These were the adults who, when seeing a child with less than rosy cheeks and imperfect smiles, would have a sharp word or sixty with the offending child's parents. His parents had had quite a few visits from these people over the years, and every single call was about him. He'd come up with those titles himself for these interfering nosy parkers, and had tried to get his brothers to pick it up with him. They'd told him that he was quite insane and stupid, then dumped him upside down in the rubbish bins.   


"That would be bad. But maybe I want to leave."   


The girl giggled. "Why would you want to leave here? Everybody's handsome and nice and pretty and we're all so very smart. Well, except you."   


Rimmer started, his mouth hanging open in annoyance. "Hey!"   


"Oh, no offense, Mr. Rimmer," chirped the girl carelessly. "It's just that you're so... weird. Well, gotta go. See ya!" She skipped away, leaving Rimmer alone.   


"Nice kid. They grow 'em all like that around here?" said a new, feminine voice. Rimmer looked up, but didn't see anybody near by.   


"Yeah. All a bunch of precocious snots." He didn't think it odd that he was talking to a disembodied voice.   


"Except for you."   


Rimmer brayed, a morose chuckle. "Of course except for me. I was their butt. Their scapegoat. The shallow end of the gene pool. And it fit me so well that I just kept it up my whole life." This last sentence came out in a bitter wail.   


"You poor bastard. I was a scapegoat, too, you know."   


"Really? You don't sound to thrilled about it either." He was craning his neck now, trying to figure out where this person was that he was speaking to. "Where are you? I'd like a face to put to the voice. Rude to have a conversation without even knowing what you look like."   


"Oh, yes, you're a paragon of good manners, Rimmer." The voice dripped sarcasm. "Fine. Here." At this, a woman appeared from behind a nearby hologram tree. She was petite, no taller than a child, really, but had the proportions of a fully grown woman. Her hair was long and black, and she had a distinct epicanthic fold. Chinese. Or maybe Korean, thought Rimmer. She was dressed in what first appeared to be silk, but he swore it kept changing to rags, and then back to silk again.   


"You're a strange man, Rimmer. Why do you insist on seeing things that aren't really there?"   


"Are you not really here?"   


"Wrong question. I'm Bai."   


"Oh. Well, I'm sure your mother is thrilled."   


She rolled her eyes and gave Rimmer a quick cuff across the back of his head. "Not BI, you idiot. B. A. I. Bai. It means pure. Whereas Rimmer means crude sexual act."   


"Hey!"   


"Oh, excuse me. Would you prefer Strong as an Eagle?"   


"What?"   


"You're sad. Don't even know the meaning of your name. Of course, eagles are filthy birds. Scavengers, eaters of rotting flesh. Which is why America chose it as her national symbol."   


This was too much for Rimmer. "Look, if you're just here to insult me, then pick on some other topic. I couldn't give a smeg about a country 3 million years from here."   


She laughed. "Very well. If you want to be that way... Where's the girl in the wrong body, and what is her name?"   


Rimmer puzzled this out for a bit, thinking maybe that this was some sort of riddle. "I don't know, who?" he answered finally.   


This seemed to annoy his new companion. "Damn it. This is dreaming. I'd forgotten about it." Rimmer wondered how anybody could forget about dreaming. "Look, concentrate. Think about the woman you," she shuddered here for a moment, and managed to grind out, "love. You need to lead me to her, so I can get her back!"   


Rimmer stood up. "Back? You mean she's gone? Oh, God, Hippolyta!"   


As soon as the name crossed his lips, he felt like he was being bound by a thousand million tiny threads, seeking out every cell in his body, to tie it down. He struggled for a moment, then just let go, letting the... things... tie him. He felt his mind spinning through an airless void, and tried to draw in breath. The things tying him down supplied him air, and heat, and he spun through space, faster than light, and was suddenly floating just outside a porthole on the GELF ship.   


"There. We have her. She's about twenty thousand kilometers from where you are now. So here's what you do, Rimmer. Wake up, go to the navigational console, and in this order," the buttons he must push were suddenly embedded in his mind, "enter these coordinates." The numbers were suddenly there too. "If anybody tries to stop you, don't worry about them. We'll deal with it." And with that, he was back on the steps of his mother's house.   


"What about Kryten?" Rimmer could scarcely believe he was saying this. He knew exactly what this Bai planned to do to the rest of the crew, and he was, somehow, agreeing with it!   


"Hit him here," and a spot on Kryten's body was implanted in his mind. "That's his emergency shut off switch. Then, get to that GELF ship."   


"Yes." This was why Rimmer stopped resisting. He was going to rescue Hippolyta, and the consequences be damned!   




*****************

  


Rimmer came to staring at the ceiling of the galley. Kryten had laid him out on the table, and gone back to his duties. The rest of the crew was not in his immediate line of vision, so he swung himself off the table to go do as he had been instructed.   


Upon reaching the cockpit, he saw that the view screen was on, showing the pitted surface of the asteroid. Starbug had, miraculously, touched down on the thing, and he could make out the crew, in full suited gear, toiling away with shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction. Gathering water for the ship. He was about to enter the coordinates of his instructions, when a small voice in the back of his head told him to call his comrades aboard first. Otherwise, they were sure to die when their air ran out. But his instructions were clear... But he couldn't just leave them!   


_~Fine! Call them aboard first! Just do it quickly!~_  


"What's going on?" he asked into the radio. Even to him, his voice sounded unnatural and tinny. But he had the radio to cover for this oddity, fortunately.   


"Rimmer! Welcome back to the world of the living. Sorry to ditch you like that, we had to get a move on." Lister, or a figure who he presumed was Lister, paused in his work and waved cheerfully at the view screen. "Keep an eye on us, will ya? We've got an hour of air left still."   


"No, I think you'd better come in now."   


"Why? Something on the navicomp?"   


"N... Yes. Yes, something on the navicomp. Big trouble. Get back inside." He had started to say no, but found his vocal chords overridden by his unseen passenger, Bai.   


"What is it, Rimmer?" This was Kochanski, gathering up her tools and coiling up an ice hose around her arm, while the others were already space sprinting to the 'Bug.  


"Big trouble," he repeated. "Get back inside."   


"You ok, Rimmer? You sound weird." Kochanski hesitated, falling behind the group a bit.   


"Get inzzzzide or I'll leave you," buzzed Rimmer, now totally out of control of the situation.   


"Whoa! Steady on, man!" Now Lister stopped running too, craning his helmeted face up to the general direction of the cockpit. Even The Cat and Kryten had slowed in their lolloping gait toward the ship.   


_~This is too slow! Shove over!~_   


Rimmer could feel a strange power building up behind his sinuses. He glanced at the tiny, struggling, slow figures outside the ship, and then... He felt a hand, or actually a fist, reach out from his body, and he grabbed all four of in a split second, like a compulsive gambler grabs the dice off a craps table. And, in that same second, all four of his crew mates were in the port side bathroom. He dumped them there, carelessly, not caring about landing positions. As an afterthought, he locked the door from the outside, using that same controlled fist.   


For years afterward, Rimmer would think back on that split second, and sigh. All that power, his...   


But at the moment, using that (weird, uncanny) power was somehow second nature to him. Done with almost no thought.   


_~Now you are truly Strong as an Eagle. Do as you're told!~_   


His fingers flew across the console, as he entered the coordinates of the GELF ship's current position. Somehow, in all of this, he managed to know exactly where they were, even as they moved away at five thousand kilometers an hour.   


He could feel the shuddering groan of metal fatigue as the 'Bug lifted off the surface of the asteroid. Using his fist again, he searched out and found the weaknesses in the shell, held them together with his will alone. Why, the fist was even mending the breaches, fusing the metal together more efficiently than a welder ever could. The drive system bent to his wishes, flowing back together like water. And then the ship _moved._ Like it was shot out of a cannon.   


He was a knight in shining armor, off to rescue his damsel. Nothing could stop him.   


_~Hippolyta, we're coming!~_   


****************

  


"Look, I'm not Lister!"   


"Grraaccck-ptooie-cchhhk-arrgh."   


"Aw, shit."   


Hippolyta hadn't been able to move a muscle since being brought on board the GELF ship. They weren't taking any chances. Even though the only place she could go would be into the inky blackness of space, they didn't release her from her invisible bonds.   


"Look, I know this is going to sound weird, but honestly, I'm not Lister! I'm... uh... somebody else who looks like him. So whatever horrible and nasty things you were planning to do to him, and I'm sure he totally deserves it and good onya and I'll cheer you on when it happens, just don't do them to me!"   


"HHHYou... Lihhhghster."   


Hippolyta blinked. "Did you just speak English?"   


"Hhhhhyes. Iiihh am speh-cker. I speck."   


"Well done," said Hippolyta, weakly. "You've gone positively native. Ok. Tell your friends here that I'm not Lister, and then we'll forget this whole thing ever happened. Sound good?"  


"Sshhhoundg like hlie."   


"No no! It's not a lie! Go ahead, ask me anything that Lister would know. I promise I'll stun you with my complete lack of knowledge."   


"HHHHyou har grroom. We hhaf brride. Hend huf dissssckussion."   


With that, her smelly interpreter turned back to his comrades and spoke in a string of spittle-strewn GELFish. When he was done, he pointed a forefinger at his temple and made little circles. The rest of the GELFs laughed uproariously.   


_I swear to God, when I get out of this, Lister is getting the spork treatment. It'll be a blunt, rusty spork too. And if I can't get the plastic to rust, I'll dip it in the urine recyke first!_ Hippolyta thought to herself, trying to wiggle her way out of the personal tractor beam she was in. It didn't do any good this time either. She knew it wasn't going to do her a damn bit of good, but, as a human being, she had to keep trying. Humans were funny that way. Put them in a situation where the odds are firmly stacked against them, and they will continue to try. Even the most rank pessimist had this genetic stubborn streak. The only other option was despair.   


After a few futile moments of pointless wriggling, Hippolyta relaxed and slumped into her constraints. A gurgle in her borrowed guts reminded her that she'd not eaten for several hours. Or was it days? She couldn't remember. Maybe a light snack after the leak in the 'Bug had been discovered. Something like that, anyway. Well, it couldn't hurt to ask. If she understood her captors correctly, they were going to want her in good health for her... ick... wedding. She swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from vomiting at the thought of marriage duties with a GELF.   


"Uh, is there a chance of dinner, guys?"   


The GELF glanced at her, then back at the translator. The translator grunted at a pot steaming in the corner, and then laughed.   


The next thing Hippolyta knew, she had a bowl of something steaming and smelling of boiled socks shoved under her nose. She started to say. "Oh my God, what _is_ that?" That was her mistake. As soon as she opened her mouth, the GELF holding the bowl shoved a spoonful of the wretched glop into her face. If it was at all possible, the stuff tasted worse than it smelled. There was a whiff of cat urine, a subtle hint of rotten eggs, with a piquant wet dog aftertaste.   


When she started vomiting, the GELF laughed and laughed and laughed.   


Moaning in the aftermath of her sick, she curled her lip and spat at the translator. She scored a direct hit, right between the eyes. Instant silence. The translator did not take kindly to this treatment, and immediately shoved the rest of the bowl right in her face. Then, just as a reminder for politeness' sake, he gave her a fat lip and a black eye with a casual punch.   


"Bhee nicesh. Whore nho mhore fhoode."   


Seeing stars, reeling from the pain, Hippolyta just nodded, then passed out. Which really was a shame, as she missed a faint voice echoing in her head, a voice she knew and loved, a voice which said, _~Hippolyta, we're coming!~_   




****************

  


Lister came to staring at the ceiling of the bathroom, with a terrible pulling sensation at the base of his scalp, and he was quite chilly. Something was very wrong here. The last thing he remembered was arguing with Rimmer about something. Something important. Something about Rimmer leaving them all behind. But that was ridiculous. Rimmer wouldn't do that, would he...?   


Of course he would. This was Rimmer he was thinking of. If leaving everybody behind would put a pennycent in his pocket, Rimmer would be off like a shot.   


Lister tried to sit up, and regretted it instantly. He was jerked down immediately onto his back again, with a burning fire starting at his neck and moving to his eyebrows. He felt like somebody had tried to remove his hair using a weed whacker. Or a blender. The pain was incredible. He moaned loudly, waiting for the skin of his forehead to regain its elasticity. He swiveled his eyes to the left, and saw part of Kryten's leg on the floor. To the right was the Cat's face, but the Cat was still unconscious. Kochanski wasn't in his line of sight.   


_What the smeg just happened?_ he wondered. He spoke up, saying, "Krissy? Are you there?"   


"'M here, Dave. You ok?"   


"I can't move."   


Kochanski crawled on her hands and knees over to Lister. He could only see her face in his line of vision, but she appeared to be rather uncomfortable as well. Upon seeing him, she gasped.   


"What? What is it? Is something the matter with me?"   


"You could say that. Your hair is... uh... melted to the deck."   


She was actually wrong. Lister's borrowed hair was actually _in_ the deck. That's the problem with teleportation. You move matter through matter, sometimes you can screw it up.   


"Oh smeg," Lister moaned. "Krissy, what am I gonna do?"   


"Easy. Wait here." Kochanski's face vanished, and he heard her rummaging through a drawer. She reappeared a moment later. "Now hold still. Don't want to cut your ear off."   


Lister saw her scuttle naked around to the top of his head, then heard the unmistakable sound of scissors snipping through hair. A moment later, he could move, sit up. _Hippolyta's going to go spare!_ thought Lister, as he finally figured out what Kochanski had done.   


He moved his hand up, and felt an uneven, ragged haircut. The front portion of his hair was longer than the back, and swung down to cover his face. Kochanski had butchered it! Eyes wide, he said, "If you leave her hair like this, I'm telling her to kill you first."   


"Yes, well, first we have to get her back. And I lay long odds against that happening," Kochanski said grimly, tapping the nail scissors against the flat of her palm.   


"Oh, Krissy, you really think that? Rimmer would... hey, hold on! What the smeg happened out there? One minute we're outside, in our _space suits_, and the next we're in here, without them!" Lister hadn't connected this dot until just now. Something else was odd too, but the repeated sight of Kochanki naked had somehow numbed him to it.   


"That's not all we're missing. Hippolyta's got a nice body, for a woman." Kochanski was still frowning, and Lister finally noticed she wasn't wearing a stitch. Nor was he. Nor was...   


Oops. Yeah, even the Cat was naked. Lister scooted quickly to the shower, grabbed a towel and tossed it toward Kochanski. "Cover up!" The next towel he wrapped around himself like a sarong, then realized his mistake and hiked it up to cover his borrowed tits. Finally, he tossed the third towel over the Cat, averting his eyes from the long, lean form, but not before he got quite an eyeful.   


"Holy smeg," he whispered. "Kochanski, I'm feeling very inadequate at the moment."   


"Well, right now you're in no position to compare. Hell, I'm feeling inadequate myself. What size cup do you think she wears?"   


Lister shrugged. "Dunnow, but right now I'd kill for a sports bra."   


Kochanski snorted, and tried to stand up. Wearing nothing but a towel, she looked rather charming, but Lister could see the goose bumps on her skin. She moved to the door, and found it...   


"Locked. Thought so. Lister, something has happened to Rimmer. And we're prisoners in here."   


"Smeg. What the hell...?"   


"Didn't you hear his voice? Something is very wrong with him. How he got us in here, naked, with your hair melted to the deck... This is creepy, Lister."   


Lister looked down at the floor, biting his lower lip. "Well, until he lets us out, we gotta keep warm."   


"That's easy." Kochanki turned to the shower and turned the hot water on full blast. Steam quickly filled the room. "Our very own sauna."   


"That can't be good for Kryten, Krissy."   


Kochanski seemed to ponder this for a moment, then smiled. "Good."   




*******************************************

  


_**Author's Note:** For those of you wondering about Bai's anti-American speech; Those are not my opinions. I grant that they may be others. Hell, Ben Franklin wanted our national bird to be the wild turkey, saying much the same thing as Bai, although for vastly different reasons.   
_

Anyway. Just a quick disclaimer. Next chapter due soon.   


**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	7. Invasion

*******************************************

Nakedness is often seen but never looked at. And the humanoid crew that was currently locked in the port side bathroom of Starbug XX was learning this very rapidly. The only one who wasn't glancing embarrassedly around every few seconds was Kryten, and that was because the steam from the shower was fogging up his opticals. The only thing more unnerving to the Cat, Lister and Kochanski than their baffling nudity was watching Kryten turn on his eyeball wipers. 

The Cat was of two minds on the whole situation. On the one hand, he was locked in a steamy room with two beautiful, naked women. Oh, sure, one of them was Lister, but he could ignore that for the moment. On the other hand, he was definitely not dressed properly! Terry cloth all over! This just wouldn't do. He had tried scrounging in the medicine cabinet for something to go with the impromptu loincloth, but all he'd found was some mint green dental floss, and that sure as hell didn't match the sky blue of the towel. He'd just have to suffer through a little while longer. Although he'd had a Scarlet O'Hara moment with the shower curtain, which had been firmly vetoed by Lister and Kochanski on the grounds that clear plastic wasn't good for modesty. In vain had he pointed out that the little green frogs painted on it could be used in a very strategic manner. This had sent Kochanski into a giggle fit, while Lister blushed and just shook his head. 

"I'm hungry." 

"God, me too. But all we've got is the Listerine." 

"Well, that's good for _you_, monkey, but unless you find some Catsterine in there too, I'm gonna starve!" 

"Mouthwash. Listerine is a mouthwash, you doink."

Kochanski giggled. "Doesn't this have a lot of alcohol in it? We could get snockered while smelling minty fresh." 

"I think you've had enough, Kriss." He gently took the bottle away from her, and put it back in the medicine cabinet. "I think we've all had enough!" 

"Temper temper, Dave." 

Lister, who was already on the edge of exhaustion and annoyance, shot Kochanski a nasty look. "Temper, she says! Temper! I'm stuck as a woman, almost totally naked in a bathroom and hungry! Tell me exactly _how_ I'm supposed to keep my temper? Huh? Please, Kris, I'm quite curious and wish to sign up for the pamphlet!" 

Following this outburst, Kochanski, the Cat and Kryten all raised their eyebrows. Or, rather, Kryten raised the section of his forehead that should have had eyebrows. 

Kochanski said, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were premenstrual." 

"Oh smeg. Smeg! Is that why my guts feel like they're tied in little knots and my ankles have swole up to twice their normal size? And is that why I have this weird craving for cottage cheese? I mean, I normally can't _stand_ cottage cheese. It's revolting. It's all lumpy and watery and tasteless, and yet right now I'd happily tear off my arm for a pot!" 

Kochanski nodded. "The food cravings and mood swings have begun. I give you... hm... forty eight hours on the outside." 

Lister pursed his lips and flared his nostrils. On Hippolyta's face, this gave off the distinct impression of impending violence. The strange, erratic tic in his cheek didn't help matters. 

"You do this every month, Kris? How in the smeg do women do it? And not go totally insane?" 

Kryten spoke up for the first time and said, "I'd venture to argue that point, Mr. Lister." 

Kochanski narrowed her eyes at the mechanoid. Then she laid a tender hand on Lister's knee. "We manage. Oh, sure, we get emotional and snarky and cry at inopportune moments, and occasionally we shout rude words for no apparent reason, but other than that, we manage just fine." 

"Except for the Oopsie Incident," sniffed Kryten. 

"Kryten, if you bring that up one more time, I'm going to weld your nonexistent lips to your laughingly lacking ears." 

"Ok, now I gotta know. What's the Oopsie Incident?" The Cat was laid back against the side of the tub, running a lazy finger against the inside of the shower door, doodling in the steam. 

"Nothing!" said Kochanski quickly. "It was nothing!" 

"It wasn't nothing, ma'am! It was hideously, terribly embarrassing! I thought that my behavior protocol chip was going to melt in sheer, cringing humiliation for you!" 

Lister's eyes got wide, and he leaned forward. "Ok, this I've got to hear." 

"Dave," said Kochanski sweetly, "are you wanting me to strangle you with the dental floss? Because you're strolling down that path, dear." 

"It was terrible, Mr. Lister. One evening, I'd gotten the laundry from Miss Kochanski's quarters, as per usual. Now, I normally sort all the laundry..." 

"Yeah, yeah..." egged on Lister, ignoring Kochanski's crossed arms and deep sighs. 

"But on this day, I admit was distracted. We'd only just escaped from Red Dwarf, and I was still processing the data. Gun battles cause me to lag something terrible." 

"Kryten..." moaned Kochanski, knowing what was coming. 

"So I put all of Miss Kochanski's clothes into the dryer, without... oh I hesitate to say it..." 

"Don't hesitate, Krytes! Onward!" 

"Oh... it was awful... In one of Miss Kochanski's trouser pockets was... a pen!" squeaked Kryten. 

Silence greeted this revelation. "A pen. You mean that this entire story was about a pen in the pocket?" Lister looked disgusted. "I fail to see how that's embarrassing for Krissy." 

"Well, it leaked all over the inside of the dryer! Have you ever had to clean ink off of the interior of a tumble dry? It's very difficult! If I'd not had my OxyCleen, I'd be there still!" 

Kochanski was staring open mouthed at the mechanoid. "My pen? You mean you've been holding that over my head for months, and it was about my pen?!" She looked as if she were about to cry from giddy relief. 

"Well, Miss Kochanski, I'd thought that you'd not want Lister to know that the ink had gotten all over your new peephole bra, too. You were so upset that you started laughing!" 

More silence. The Cat had a strange look on his face, which could best be described as a thousand yard stare, usually found on a man who'd seen too much in one lifetime. Except the Cat was looking straight down the barrel of the Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue. Lister was also staring straight ahead, mouth open. Finally he rasped out, "You told me you lost it." 

Kochanski blushed crimson. "I really, really hate you, Kryten." 

*********************

Starbug rocketed onward, propelled by the combined wills of a total smeghead and a mysterious asian girl who was snuggling up with the smeghead's brain pan. 

_~You really should do some tidying up in here, Rimmer. I'm ankle deep in neurosis.~ _

~Forgive me,~ snotted Rimmer. _~If I'd known that I was going to have a guest in, I would have thrown a few doilies over my cortex.~_

They faced each other across a windswept plain, dark clouds boiling overhead. A small portion of their shared attention was piloting the 'Bug, but the rest of their time was spent circling each other mentally. Like two dogs eyeing the same bone, they were raising emotional hackles and baring telepathic teeth. Rimmer was not entirely sure where these images were coming from; himself, or Bai. She could be tossing this out to unnerve him, put him out of sorts and off balance. For what reason, though, he didn't know. On the other hand, it could very well be his own mind pulling up this darksome plain. A natural defense against invasion? Or lurking self-esteem issues? You be the judge. 

Bai was trying to lounge casually against a jagged rock, and failing miserably. She looked mightily annoyed at the universe in general, and at Rimmer in particular. Shooting a glance at the rock she was supporting herself on, it slowly and creakingly metamorphosed into a bright pink papasan wicker chair. This was obviously not the result she had intended, as the look on her face suggested. She kicked it, and then sat down in it, very carefully. 

"Of all the people I've ever met, Arnold Judas Rimmer, you are, without a doubt, the easiest, and yet at the same time, most difficult mind I've ever cracked." 

"Do this often, do you? Rabbiting about in a man's innermost, rummaging through the sock drawer of the mind? Well, I'll have you know that the only reason I'm putting up with you is so I can get Hippolyta back. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, girly." 

"I hold no illusions about your motivations, Strong as an Eagle." 

"Stop calling me that!" 

"What would you prefer? Tiger? Schmoopsy? Button Butt? I'm closer to you than any wife could ever hope to be." She wriggled uncomfortably in her bowl shaped chair, which was slowly becoming less pink and becoming more and more granite-y themed. "And stop fighting me!" 

"I am not!" 

"You are too!" 

"I am not!" 

Bai rolled her eyes, then yelped as her chair jutted into the small of her back quite painfully. The chair had completed its circle, and was once again a rock. She kicked it again, which had the effect of turning it into a small blue pineapple. 

"See? Look, you want your ship to keep working, don't you?" 



***************

Inside the bathroom, the trapped members of the crew shrieked as the lights went out and the floor decided it wanted to spend a moment at a forty-five degree angle. 



***************

"Stop that!" 

***************

The ship righted itself and the lights came back on, to reveal a very odd picture indeed. The shower had miraculously stayed on, soaking the entire party. The Cat was laying on top of Kochanski, whose towel had chosen that exact moment to flip up, revealing far too much of her finely toned thighs. The Cat looked down at Kochanski, then back up. His eyes crossed, and he slowly fell to one side, grinning all the way. Lister, meanwhile, was spread eagled underneath Kryten, and looking considerably miffed at where the groinal attachment socket was currently positioned. 



***************

"Then quit trying to get me out of your brain!" 

"I tell you that I'm not! I don't know why, but you're getting me to Hippolyta faster than I could do on my own. And, contrary to popular opinion, I really do accept help when and where it is offered. It's just that usually my benefactors don't try to take over my thought processes in the meantime. Oh, they'll beat me up and steal my wallet, sure. And once I was conned out of a thousand dollarpounds by the pigeon drop scam... but that's not the point! The point is that, as much as it annoys me to have you here, you're helping me, and I'm not trying to fight you!" 

Bai regarded him stonily for a moment, and then said, "You'd try to argue your way out of being tops in the National Arguing Championship, wouldn't you? Just to prove your point." 

Rimmer breathed slowly out of distended nostrils, his lips pursed in disgust. "Fine. Ok. I give you complete control over all of this!" He swept his arms in a large circle to indicate the entirety of the gruesome landscape they were on. Then he dropped a deep and ironic bow. "It's yours, oh Queen of the May, for all the smegging good it'll do you." He turned away from her and crossed his arms. 

Bai rolled her eyes again. Time for a change of tactics. She insinuated her petite form against his back and said, "You know, if you'd just let me in a little bit further, I could send you to paradise and back. I could show you things that no man has ever seen, experience things that would straighten your hair. I could ride you like a horse and bring you to heel like a dog and you'd beg for more." 

At the edge of his vision, beyond the range of his ears, he could sense the delights and pleasures that Bai was hinting at. The sort of lifestyle that he'd been lusting after since he'd been old enough to fantasize about it. Beautiful women, fast cars, command of a space corps ship... Happiness, presented to him on a silver platter, for the rest of his life. Respect, dignity, admiration, all his, all... phony. 

He was enough of a man at that point to shudder. Not to say he wasn't tempted... but every moment, he knew he would rebel. His brain just couldn't help but imagine a bad outcome to any situation. Lister had once told him about how the hologrammatic Rimmer had spoiled the total immersion game Better Than Life in much the same manner. And then, on top of it all, there was Hippolyta. 

Aside from their petty squabbling, (oh, yes, so petty to chuck a book at her head, you gimboid) she'd been the best influence in his life to date. Of course they weren't a perfect couple, but then who was in this imperfect universe? He closed his eyes and thought of her, how she looked, her voice, her scent, the feel of her naked body... 

"Oh, nice. Yes, puerile fantasies for the emotionally stunted. Grow up, Rimmer." 

Rimmer opened his eyes, intending to punch Bai right in the nose if he could. (He'd never hit a lady, but Bai was no lady, that was for smegging sure...) But instead of the hated form of Bai, he saw Hippolyta standing there, wearing Bai's oriental type costume of silk and flat shoes. Her hair was in a single braid down her back, which was odd, because Hippolyta always wore her hair loose. But it was undeniably her, right down to the way she cocked her eyebrow at him. 

He knew, intellectually, that this was Bai putting on an act. Viscerally was a different story. He'd gone these last weeks subtly getting used to the idea that Hippolyta was now a man. Repeated exposure had kind of dulled his reactions. So seeing her now, restored to her former self, really gave him quite a jolt. 

"This is why I say you're such a gimp. Look at you. Putting your lover's face on me!" 

Rimmer opened his mouth, wanting to say something clever. What came out was, "I'm doing this?" 

"Of course you are. This is your mind, you twit. This," now she swept her arms around to indicate the landscape, "is all your mind!" 

"You're lying," said Rimmer, casually astonished that he somehow knew that. "You're just trying to screw me up." This wasn't his mind, this wasn't his dream, this wasn't a natural defense. He knew he had to catch her out on this, somehow. He had to get her to admit that she was projecting this. But how? 

Bai rolled her eyes. She really was quite good at that. "Rimmer, there isn't a soul in this universe who could screw you up any better than you already do yourself." She looked down at her superimposed body. "My God. American women have such unwieldy breasts. I feel like a milch cow." She cupped her hands to the aforementioned breasts. "It's amazing she doesn't just fall over, being so top heavy. Although her large rear does serve as a counter balance, I suppose." 

"Stop that." 

Bai smirked, oozing what she thought was charm. "Ah, a chink in the armor?" 

And then he knew how. There were a large range of emotions that he'd mastered, from cowering fear to apoplectic rage. And, knowing what he did of Bai, fear wasn't the way to go. "What, you? That's a rather racist way to refer to yourself, isn't it?" 

Bai looked infuriated at this last, turning a lovely red. "You bastard. How _dare_ you..." The winds grew more turbulent, and now lightning arced across the sky. Her borrowed image flickered for a moment, and Rimmer could almost, almost see a terribly ancient and wrinkled... _thing_ hiding out underneath it. She was losing all control. 

Rimmer smirked. "Gotcha." 

Bai returned to her normal self, and the inclement weather instantly granted itself clemency. There was even a rainbow starting over to the left. She looked amused, impressed, and terribly angry all in one go. "Well done you. But it changes nothing." 

"Wrong. It changes everything. You're along for the ride now, m'lassie." Rimmer adopted a pose of smug triumph. "I hope you like telegraph poles and Morris dancing, because you're about to get the full on guided tour." 

Bai's eyes widened. "You wouldn't." 

"Watch me." As he said this, they were no longer standing on a dark plain, but were now milling about in a crowded convention hall, surrounded on all sides by leiderhosen, ribbon and people with bells on their knees. Rimmer was also in costume, and was even holding a pair of white cotton handkerchiefs. "Maaaaarvelous. This is going to be... fun!" 



***************

Their towels were soaked, so getting dry was a problem. Fortunately, they were all already sweating, so the water was just adding to an already impressive sheen of wet, and it had the bonus effect of somewhat negating the smell. The Cat was frantically trying to smooth down his hair, which had started to go all frizzy. 

"BeeBee, can't we shut the water off now? I'm so hot that you could fry an egg on me! Hell, you could toss on a sausage, it'd be done in two minutes! I'm so hot I'm like the entire squad of Dallas Cowboy's cheerleaders! And believe me, they were HOT! I'm so hot that I'm hotter than my normally hot, delicious self!" 

Kochanski shrugged. "No, we can't. We'd freeze faster now that we're all wet." 

"And whose bright idea was it to turn on the shower in the first place?" 

Kochanski, being a woman herself and knowing exactly what it was Lister was going through, was still right peeved that he was speaking to her like that. Hormones or not. These were the sort of words that brought on vicious slaps and hair pullings in her teenage days. "Dave?" 

"What?" 

"Shut, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, UP." 

Lister pouted. "I can't take this any more! We've got to get out of here, get some clothes, some food! Kryten!" 

"Yeeee-sssir?" Kryten wasn't doing well at all. The prolonged exposure to the steam and the liberal soaking had started to short out his circuits. Condensation on the interior of his head and hands was showing, making his face sag and melt in small patches. He rather looked like a bad special effect in a low budget music video. You know the kind. The kind where the lead guitarist wears black nail varnish and bites the heads off small furry animals. Kryten's condition wasn't irreversible, but it was rather uncomfortable. He'd managed, thankfully, to set up some auxiliary neural pathways, to maneuver around the worst of the damp. But even those were beginning to break down. He could feel himself getting stupider. If he didn't get out of the steam soon, he may very well become... shudder to think it... a literary critic. 

Lister, however, was too keyed up to notice this irrelevant detail. "Break the door down!" 

Kryten was too bogged down, literally, to argue against this command. With some difficulty, he gained his feet. Then, quite unhelpfully, his knee joints gave way in a screech of rust and he collapsed to the deck, his lower legs disattaching themselves and pin wheeling away. 

"I'm So-oo-o-ree sirrrr. I ap-ap-appear to have lo-lo-st my feet. I'll try a-ga-in." 

"No need, Kryten! No need!" said Lister, ashamed that he'd not noticed the mech's difficulties. He slumped back down and retrieved Kryten's legs. "Smeg. That does it. How else are we going to get out of here?" 

"I wonder..." mused Kochanski, who started rummaging around under the sink. A moment later, a muffled, "Ah-HAH!" was heard. She emerged from under the sink holding aloft... 

"A bobby pin? You've been reading too many Nancy Drew novels, Kris." 

"It's not for the door lock, Lister. It's for the override panel. The automatic doors are designed to open when there's a broken circuit. Keeps people from getting trapped in an emergency. Well, an emergency when the power's still on, at any rate." She crossed to a small panel near the door and swung it open, and began to fiddle with it. 

"So that's why they moved the override panels to _inside_ the bathroom? To keep out any practical jokers?" 

Kochanski nodded. "You wouldn't believe how many times an unpopular crew mate got caught out by some wit sticking a paper clip in the override." 

"I know, I used to do it to Rimmer. I could sell tickets! It really cheesed me off when they got moved. Lost out on a lot of beer money." 

Kochanski glanced at Lister sideways. Then, with a satisfying fizzle, the door whooshed open. "Gotcha." 

"So why didn't you think of that sooner?" 

Kochanski flashed a brittle smile and snapped, "Because I was stuck naked in a bathroom and hungry! Any more stupid questions?" 



***************

Bai, who was currently huddled in a fetal position on the floor, moaning softly to herself, surrounded by Morris dancers and people writing down their dice rolls in their Risk diaries, suddenly froze and then glanced upwards. 

"Shit," she muttered. 



***************

Lister reached over and shut off the shower. "Ok. Here's what we do. First priority is clothes." 

"Oh my Cloister. I never thought I'd see the day!" The Cat grabbed Lister in a deep hug. "Thank you. Thank you!" 

Lister shrugged the Cat away. "Knock it off. Second priority is getting Kryten up and about again. We'll leave him here for now, then come back and fix him after we're... decent." Kochanski nodded, smirking. "Then food. THEN we get into the cockpit somehow and give Rimmer a nice introduction to my friend, Mr. Socket Wrench." 

"Yeah. And if he's with that penguin again, I'm going to make him wish he'd never heard the word gingham." 

Kochanski looked perplexed, but she decided to let this odd remark go. She turned to the Cat. "Dress quickly." 

"And rush a work of art? BeeBee, you don't know what you're asking!" 

"Quickly, she said," interjected Lister. "Any longer than ten minutes and you'll meet Mr. Wrench too. All right. Go!" They ran to their respective quarters. 



**************

"We've got a problem, Rimmer." 

Rimmer looked down from the small stage he was on. He was surrounded by fellow dancers, in a circle, and they were in the middle of a very tricky step which somehow involved broomsticks. His attention distracted, Rimmer missed the step, which caused the rest of the dancers to stumble, then fall. Then they vanished. 

"Stop that. Or I'll bring out my Hammond Organ CDs." 

"If you'd pay attention, you'd notice that our little friends in the bathroom have escaped, and are quite intent on breaking down the door to the cockpit and beating you senseless." 

The convention hall vanished, and they were left in a fog of gray. Rimmer felt a small, cold stone of fear suddenly settle in his stomach. They would ruin everything! They would, unwittingly, stop him from getting Hippolyta back. He had to get them back in their cage... 

Cage? This wasn't him. He realized that Bai was putting this in his mind again. 

"Good. Let them come. Then maybe I'll get a break from you. You can't get into my head when it's been beaten unconscious, can you?" 

"I'll do it myself!" she screamed. She turned to run away, but Rimmer grabbed her wrist and spun her back to him. It was the first time he'd voluntarily touched her. Jerking her up close, he snarled into her face. 

"You can't do it yourself. You have to get me to do it. You need me to focus your power. And that isn't happening, not in a month of Ioian Saturdays." 

She actually looked a little afraid of him for a moment. Then she regained her composure and said, "You're right. I do need a focus. But it doesn't have to be you..." 



**************

Kochanski was pulling on a pair of trousers, and smirking quietly while Lister tried to find a way to make his clothes fit Hippolyta's body. "Krissy, is there any way we could get one of your bras to fit her?" 

"Doubt it. She's bigger than I am, as much as I'm loathe to..." she trailed off, and got a strange, distant look on her face. 

"Kriss? Krissy?" Lister grabbed her by the hand. 

"Something's... wrong..." she whispered. There was a strange buzzing noise filling her ears, a dizziness enveloping her that was threatening to make her faint. A thousand tiny threads were whipping at her skin, threatening to tie her down. She sat down hard on the deck. 

"Kristine!" Lister's voice came from very far away, like he was shouting at her from down a tunnel. 



***************

Rimmer felt the power drain from his body. He hadn't realized until just now exactly how much energy this whole exercise was expending. He could feel his brain start to shrivel up, the ship begin to slow to a crawl. He slumped in his chair, and started shaking like a leaf. He could see Bai getting further away from him, running away in the dense gray fog, becoming smaller and smaller. 

And he realized that if she got out of sight, he'd never see Hippolyta again. He struggled to run after her. It was like running under water at 6000 fathoms. His lungs labored against the strain, his heart pounded in his ears and throat and eyes. 

Using the last of his mental energy, the last of the power that Bai had granted him, he threw his thoughts out, randomly, wildly, looking for some sort of anchor to keep Bai in sight. Then he found it. 

_~Hippolyta!~_



***************

Hippolyta was still unconscious on the GELF ship, but suddenly she gasped in her sleep and her face screwed up in concentration. 

_~Rimmer?~_



**************

And there she was. She was next to him, running with him, holding his hand as they sprinted across the gray. She looked bemused, and slightly frightened. But, above all else, she was angry. 

"Hullo dear. Sorry to bother you, but I'm in a bit of a fix right now and could really use your help," said Rimmer casually, as if they weren't running for their lives through his mind. 

"Oh, no bother at all. Who are we chasing? And, uh, how exactly is this going on? You understand my confusion, right?" 

"Well, there's this girl..." 

"The entirety of human kind is near extinct, and you've met somebody else? I find myself rather shocked, Rimmer." 

"Well, I don't like her at all. In fact, I'm trying to catch her right now so I can beat the ever living fuck out of her." 

"Oh." Hippolyta nodded. "I'm good at that." The running had become easier now, and Bai was no longer a distant speck. In fact, they were gaining on her. Bai glanced behind herself, catching sight of the lovers quickly gaining ground. She lowered her head and charged forward, gaining a slight burst of speed. But only for a moment. Suddenly, Bai seemed to hit a wall, and stopped very short. She crumpled and fell. Rimmer and Hippolyta were on her in an instant. Bai moaned and whimpered and shivered, seemingly stuck in her own, personal hell. 

"It's not you. It's not you, it's _her!_" she moaned, glancing glassy eyed at Hippolyta. 



**************

Kochanski blinked, and shook herself. "It's over." 

Lister looked annoyed, scared and pissed off all at once. "What's over? What the smeg is going on around here?" 

"Are you decent?" asked Kochanski, standing quickly. 

"Mostly," said Lister, confused. "I'm still short a bra, but... Hey! Tell me what's going on!" 

"We're going to the cockpit. Rimmer's got a lot of explaining to do." 

"Rimmer? What? Why?" Lister, who was usually pretty quick on the uptake if need be, felt more lost than the entire line up of the Los Angeles Clippers. 

"I think I've got it. I'm not one hundred percent on this, but it _feels_ right." She grabbed Lister's hand and hustled him out of the room. They ran up the corridor to the first set of stairs before Lister dug his feet in and pulled her to a halt. 

"Kris, if I don't get some sensible talk out of you right now, I'm gonna tie you to the bed and spank you." 

"Now's not the time, Dave!" And she tugged him along after her again, but not before stopping at the munitions cabinet, grabbing a pair of loaded bazookoids. 



***************

Rimmer and Hippolyta stood over Bai, still holding on to each other's hands in a death grip. Bai was shivering. "You're not the one. It was her. I should have gone after her..." 

"Her who?" insisted Rimmer. 

He began to let go of Hippolyta's hand, but she squeezed tighter. "Don't let go, love, or I'm gone again." She peered down at Bai. "Get out of Rimmer's head. He's mine." 

"No," gasped Bai. "If I go, you're lost. He won't be able to find you, and then you'll be stuck as the husband of a GELF until they tire of you and throw you to the Emohawk." 

Hippolyta stiffened. Bai smiled weakly at her. "Forgot about that, did you? Your mind may be here, but your body is still back with the GELF. Now, Lister and," here, Bai seemed to stutter, "th-that woman are coming. Rimmer, you have to convince them to let me stay. Otherwise..." She let the threat hang in the air. 

***************

Lister and Kochanski burst into the cockpit, bazookoids at the ready, expecting a scene of some violence. Instead, they saw through the view screen the stars winking and sailing past, blurred to after images and streaks, which were gradually getting slower. The consoles were all black, not even the slightest bit of energy flowing through them. And there was Rimmer, slumped, open eyed, in his usual seat, staring off into the distance. Kochanski shuddered, while Lister waved a hand in front of the unresponsive tech's face. 

"What's wrong with him?" asked Lister, propping his bazookoid against the console. 

"That thing that was trying to get at me? Got to him." 

"You mean he's possessed?" 

"Not exactly, no," said Rimmer suddenly, and both Lister and Kochanski jumped, startled. Kochanski swung her bazookoid at him, but Lister pushed it down to face the deck. Rimmer's eyes were still staring off into the distance, but his mouth was moving, working just fine. "I have... a visitor. She's helping us get to Hippolyta. She..." He stopped. "Rimmer, let me explain," he said to nobody in particular. Then, he continued, in a different tone of voice. "She _says_ she won't harm us. Somehow she's given Rimmer and me a telepathic connection, so I'm really sort of here." 

"Hippolyta?" asked Lister. 

Rimmer's head turned to face him, like a marionette on a string. "Dave! So glad to see you. Wait, _what have you done to my hair?!?_ You're a dead man. Dead!" "Uh, do we have time to discuss your coiffure?" "Rimmer, stay out of this." It was odd watching this entire conversation coming out of one mouth. Lister was, in turns, fascinated, appalled and amused. 

"Ok. Enough!" snapped Kochanski. "Where are we heading?"

"Toward the GELF ship. Our visitor is helping us get Hippolyta back." "I still don't trust her." "She's sitting right there, Hippolyta!" "I don't care. I don't like her, and I don't care if she knows it." "Yes, well, I'm not overly fond of her myself, but that won't help us rescue you." 

"Stop! Would just one of you tell me what's happening?" said Kochanski. "As much as I respect you, Hippolyta, let Rimmer talk." 

Rimmer seemed to smirk, but it looked painted on. "We're almost at the ship. Don't touch anything, I'll take care of it." This was in a third voice, and Kochanski's eyes widened. 

"I know you. You tried to get in my head," snarled Kochanski, whose bazookoid was swinging dangerously upwards again. 

Rimmer's eyes gleamed with anger. "Yes. And next time we meet, I'm not going to go so easy on you." 

"Steady on!" said Lister, pushing Kochanski's bazookoid down for a second time. Then, he glanced at the view screen. Just ahead of them, moving like a bat out of hell, was the GELF ship. "Oh smeg. There they are." 

Taking up too large a portion of the view screen was the GELF ship. Without even thinking, Kochanski finally put her bazookoid down and swung into Kryten's usual seat, her habits of a lifetime as a navigation officer coming into play. "Bearing mark 245.7 Range 20,000 geegucks... 19,000... 18,000... Slow us down!" she shrieked at Rimmer. "We're going to ram them!" 

"That'zzzz the plan..." buzzed Bai through Rimmer's mouth. 

**************



"No!" screamed Rimmer. "We'll be killed!" He was facing Bai again in the gray, with Hippolyta tightly clenching onto his hand. 

"Quite possibly," said Bai serenely. "And your ship won't be much good afterwards, either." 

"Don't do this, Bai!" shrieked Rimmer, looking, for the first time since she'd entered his mind, genuinely afraid. 

Hippolyta reached forward with her free hand and grabbed Bai by the front of her shirt. "Slow us down. NOW!" 

But instead of being intimidated by this, Bai became triumphantly smug. "Gotcha!" she crowed. Rimmer felt Hippolyta's grip on his hand loosen, then leave entirely. The two women were spinning away from him, faster than he could blink. They were two, small struggling dots on the horizon. Rimmer could only watch as Hippolyta managed to get in a few good licks, sending Bai staggering back. But still they grappled with each other, screeching and snarling and shrieking like wounded animals. Bai feinted to the right, seemingly trying to escape, but Hippolyta was having none of it. She delivered a bone-cracking kick at Bai's kneecap, but missed. Bai suddenly danced in closer and landed a chop on Hippolyta's neck with the edge of her palm. Rimmer screamed a frantic denial as Hippolyta stumbled and fell. Bai crouched down next to her fallen enemy and grabbed her by the wrist. 

_**~I GOT IT!~**_ screamed Bai across the cosmos. In her hand was the watch that had lately been around Hippolyta's wrist. _~Well, that was fun,~_ she said to Hippolyta, who was sprawled flat on her back. _~You're a hell of a fighter. With a bit more mental training, you might have beaten me. But, sadly, you suck. Here. Have a consolation prize.~_



*************

Kochanski was wrestling with the navicomp, entering every override password she could think of. The consoles remained as dead as roadkill, and gave off the same fetid stench. Lister, meanwhile, was cursing imaginatively, trying against try to get the garbage cannon on line and locked on the GELF ship. Nothing was working. He glanced at the view screen, watching the other ship grow larger still. They were doomed. He looked over at Kochanski and smiled bravely at her. 

"Thank you, Kris. I love you." 

"Don't you dare say goodbye to me! Help me!" 

Lister hollered, "I can't!" He thumped a fist down on the steering wheel. Suddenly, all the power on the ship's consoles roared back to life. Just as they did so, a space suited figure appeared out of nowhere, about a foot above the floor. It was Hippolyta, still unconscious, and she fell the last foot, crumpling onto the deck. Rimmer sat bolt upright, sweating and shaking, his pupils dilated so severely that they appeared to be entirely black. He screamed, sounding like a tea kettle coming to the boil, then he too lost consciousness. Kochanski, seizing the moment, was too busy programming in their new coordinates to notice these tiny details. 

With a loud groan, the ship swung hard to starboard, causing the Cat to fall over into a pile of clothing, Kryten and his detached legs to roll across the bathroom floor, and Rimmer to join Hippolyta on the deck of the cockpit. The Starbug XX missed the GELF ship by mere feet, screaming past it like a banshee. Lister had managed to get his lock with the garbage cannon, and just as they zoomed past, got off a lucky shot. 



************

The Translator was frantically waving his hands through the air, where just moments before, his prisoner had been held. A slow, sinking feeling began in his stomach, as he imagined how Grrr-aaackkc-kkkhhh-aa would take the news. Not at all well. She'd probably insist on marrying the one who failed to bring her betrothed back. And The Translator shuddered. Even among the GELF, Grrr-aaackkc-kkkhhh-aa was no prize. 

Then, a shower of sparks fell over him, and his last conscious thought before fire, radiation and oblivion took him was one of utmost relief. 

The flare from the destroyed GELF ship lit up the tail end of Starbug as it zoomed away. White hot particles of dust and debris scattered in every direction, some pinging angrily off the rear deflectors of Starbug, some embedding themselves into the hull of the ship. The Starbug rocked and swayed, shimmying like a jazz dancer. After a few heart thumping moments, the gyroscopic stabilizers finally decided to to their jobs, although there was some grumbling about a missed coffee break and getting the union involved. Starbug tottered away from the destruction, limping like a drunk who's lost one of his platform shoes at the disco. They were back on course to the derelict, having only lost two days of travel. Of course, those two days were in the entirely opposite direction of where they wanted to go. 

Lister realized something he'd noticed from the psychic scream of their late visitor. He leaned over to his own unconscious body and removed the glove of the space suit. He hadn't been imagining it. The watch, the device that caused the body swap, was gone. 

_SMEG!_



*******************************************

_**Author's Note:** If you were confused by this chapter, please dial 1-800-CONFUZE-A-FIC. Representatives will be standing by 24 hours a day to answer all your questions. _

**To Be Continued...**


	8. Regression

Twenty four hours later, the situation was this; The crew was sort of headed in the direction of the derelict that began this whole situation, but had to make a pit stop first. The Starbug had managed a rough, seat of its pants landing on an ice moon. The plan was to get water, since the last excursion hadn't been a total success. In fact, it was so far away from a success that new definitions of the word "failure" had to be invented to cover it. The magical mental feat that Rimmer had done to repair the ship three days earlier was, happily, still going strong, but nobody wanted to trust it. Which meant that they would have to double and triple check all systems, making sure that they were going to remain in one piece. However, fifty percent of the crew were incapacitated in some form or another. Rimmer and Hippolyta were still unconscious in the medi-bay, neither of them having even murmured since Bai abused and abandoned them. Kryten was off line, his head detached, doing emergency repair and data recovery since his dousing in the bathroom. That left Lister, Kochanski and the Cat to do all the work. 

Well, that left Lister and Kochanski to do all the work. The Cat had vanished a while before, saying that, in the battle, his closet had been disasterously displaced, and that it would take at least three days to reorganize and color code it. Too tired and bruised to argue, Lister had just shook his head and waved the Cat off. 

So he and Kochanski sat at the table in the galley, going on their 37th hour of sleep deprivation. They had the schematics for the ship spread open before them, and they were boning up on the automatic mining equipment. They couldn't even come close to digging up all the ice that they'd need to survive all by themselves. Not to mention that they simply didn't have the outerwear to deal with the frigid surface of the moon. 

Kochanski had large, purple circles under her bloodshot eyes, and her usually immaculate hair hung in nappy cords. Nobody had been able to shower since the disaster in the bathroom. Kochanski's brilliant idea to keep warm hadn't been so brilliant after all. The ship's recyke water storage was totally depleted, and the pure stuff was swiftly going the way of its slightly off cousin. Lister didn't have the heart to go look in a mirror. He could feel his newly shorn hair sticking out behind his ears, giving him the look of a slightly startled baby orangutan. And, not that he was totally sure, but he thought he felt a zit starting on the end of his chin. Hippolyta usually had perfect skin, and he wondered briefly if she would hold the breakout against him. Then he realized that she would have to wake up first, which didn't look like it was happening any time soon. He heaved a deep sigh, and slumped forward, bumping his head on the table top. 

Kochanski patted him on the back of the head. "I know, dear. But once we get the ship on automatic, we can go sleep for a bit. Just a little longer." 

Lister raised his head, and stared blearily at his girlfriend. "It gets on my tits that we have to do this alone, that's all." 

"I realize that this is a first, and hopefully a last, but I do wish Kryten would hurry up and fix himself. For once he might actually be useful." 

Lister stared at the schematics again. And, again, they made absolutely no sense to him. "Krissy, we've been at these diagrams for 12 hours now. You'd think something would sink in, but it isn't. I've been flying a Starbug for almost 10 years. And I still don't get it. I'm tired, exhausted, knackered, shagged out, pooped! I need sleep! I need a warm bed and a glass of warm milk and a warm body, preferably yours, next to me so I can _sleep!_" He couldn't really believe it, but he began to cry. Tears welled up and spilled over. It was as if all the bad smeg to happen to him over his entire life was being focused like a laser, a single point of misery, sharply and shamelessly screaming to be released. "I'm stuck as a woman for the rest of my life!" he wailed. "We don't know where the watch is, we don't know how to get it back! I've turned you into a lesbian!" He buried his face in his hands and screamed. 

"Lister?" said Kochanski kindly. "If your eating habits and guitar playing hasn't made me join the other team yet, you being in the wrong sort of body isn't going to make much more of a difference." She reached forward and took one of his hands away from his face. He peered at her from behind the fingers of his other hand. "We'll go to the derelict, we'll find the watch. We'll get you back to your old self again. And if, in the process, we find this Bai bitch and give her a good solid smack down, so much the better." 

"But when we scanned the derelict, there were no lifesigns. She ain't there!" howled Lister, totally awash in hormones and frustration. 

Kochanski sighed. She wondered if she'd ever been this difficult when she was premenstrual. A remote possibility, to be sure. Just don't get in the way of a lady and her pineapple chunks. She took a deep, calming breath. "Lister. Go to bed. I'll handle this." 

"What? Kris, you really mean it?" Lister was snivelling, his face all red and splotchy from his cry. 

"Yes. I've just about got it. Go." 

"You're the best, Kris. You know that, right?" Lister stood up, wobbling. 

Kochanski smiled tightly. "Yes, well, I'm not getting anything done with you sitting here whining at me. It's better if you go." 

Lister made a face, and said, "I'm a woman. I can whine all I want." He managed to take two steps, then froze, a startled and wholly disgusted look crossing his face. "Oh my God." 

Kochanski, who'd bent back over the papers, looked back up at Lister. "What? What is it?" 

"Oh my God!" 

"What's the matter? Lister!" She crossed over to him, grabbing him by the shoulder. 

"Oh my _GOD!!_" 

"What is it?! What's the matter with you?" 

Lister looked at Kochanski, his eyes swimming with revulsion. He looked as if he were about to faint, vomit and scream all at the same time. 

"I think I just got me period." 

Kochanski blinked. "Oh, is that all? I thought something was wrong." 

"You're damn right something's wrong! I'm bleeding! From a place that I shouldn't be bleeding from! Is that all, she says!" He sat back down, his upper lip curling in disgust. "Oh, God. Oh, God. I've got a woman's period." He seemed to realize what he'd said, and added, "I can't believe I just called it that." 

Kochanski smirked. "I seem to recall a nice little practical joke, played on me by one Dave Lister, accompanied by one 4000 series mechanoid. Come on, let's see you do a little twirl in it." She hauled him up out of the chair again, and steered him toward the bathroom. "You get no sympathy from me, Dave. Go get yourself fixed up. The tampons are under the sink." She closed him in the bathroom, and talked to the closed door. "There's some Midol in the cupboard, too." 

"How many should I take?" yelled Lister. 

"At least two." 

"That many?" 

"Yes," she snapped impatiently, wanting to go back to the ice retrieval. "At least two!" 

After a moment's silence, he yelled back, "I can't get 'em to fit!" 

Kochanski's eyes widened as she realized the implications of what he was saying. Hadn't heard her talking about the Midol! He was trying to fit two... Oh God! She tried the door, realized he hadn't locked it, and burst in. Lister was standing there, with a big cheeky grin on his face, holding the bottle of Midol in his hand. "Gotcha." 



Rimmer was swimming in blackness. He was struggling to find his consciousness again, knowing that there was something very important he had to take care of. But his own mind conspired against him, arguing quite succinctly that it needed rest, thanks, and to stop trying to wake up. He wasn't dreaming, exactly, due to the deep mental contusions inflicted on him by Bai. But there was a definite flickering, a rapid slideshow of images being projected against the blank sheet of his mind. Most of the images were total nonsense, consisting of mental monsters and wacky Friday night television comedy situations. A few, a rare few, were like still photographs of the women he'd known. There was Yvonne McGruder, complete with boxing gloves and trainers, frozen in time as she took an expert jab at a missing opponent. Then it was Stephanie Miller, surrounded by rubbish bins, her lips puckered up in anticipation, her eyes screwed tightly shut in fearful concentration. Then a few others, their names lost to posterity, most in the posture of getting ready to slap him silly for some inane remark he'd made in trying to pick up on them. His mother even made an appearance, with that ever-present look of sucking on a sour lemon that she had whenever he confronted her. 

He patiently waited for images of Hippolyta to join the queue. He was secretly hoping he'd get some quality pornography in the mix. But she never arrived. His mind seemed to skip her entirely, and go right onto Bai. 

_Great,_ he sort of thought, _even my dreams don't give me any enjoyment._

He saw another still picture now, of Bai sitting in lotus at the base of a tree, looking hopefully up into the branches. She seemed to be waiting for something, like a direct revelation from God. Then another, this time of Bai sitting in front of an old computer, her face washed out by the glow, her eyes wide and alert and full of joy. Another, Bai surrounded by big, intimidating men, while she smiled secretly to herself. 

Now, he knew that he'd never seen any of these scenes himself. Wonderingly, he thought that maybe Bai had been so deep in his head that she'd left a little of herself behind. Which meant that maybe he could still use her power... 

Remembering the fist, remembering the frantic flinging of his mind through space to find Hippolyta, he reached out. 

And was stopped by a throbbing, blinding pain lancing through his forehead. The consciousness that he'd been searching for once again danced out of his grasp, and he plunged deeper into darkeness. 

An indeterminate time later, Rimmer swam upwards again, this time knowing that any further experiments in telepathy would reduce him to a gibbering hulk of spam-like meat. Which, he was forced to admit, wouldn't be too much further from his current position. But at least now he could remeber the important stuff, like his name and his post code. The last wasn't particularly important anymore, seeing as he was three million years away from the post code in question, but it's the little things that make a man. 

He slowly became aware that there was a light shining directly at his face, and he scrunched up his already closed eyes against it. Then he realized that any light he was seeing was real, honest to goodness light, and that he could very well wake up soon. On the other hand, it could be the light of the afterlife, calling to him. Tentatively, he cracked open one eye, dreading what he might see. All he saw was the lamps on the ceiling of the medi-bay. He opened his other eye, and then blinked rapidly to clear the sleep gunge out. He was awake! 

He rolled over onto his side, coughing, eyes streaming tears against the onslaught of the light. When they cleared a little more, he saw Lister lying unconscious in the bed next to him. How had that happened? What was Lister doing... 

Oh. Wait. That wasn't Lister. That was Hippolyta. The events of the last two weeks caught up with him. He'd become so accustomed to seeing Hippolyta as a female in his mind that her current state was a shock. Again. He really would have to get over these jolts if he wanted to stay sane. 

Achingly, creakingly, he stumbled out of the medi-bed and crossed to her still sleeping borrowed self. He leaned over her, his thoughts bouncing off each other in confusion. She was back from her captivity, seemingly worse for the wear, with large bruises around her face and neck. But she was back. And the GELF wouldn't come visiting again. Not for a while, at least. But she was back, and relatively safe. She was back. 

He realized his breath was coming in deep, shuddering gasps. He'd not really allowed himself to think about the fact that she'd been, almost, permanently gone out of his life. So many others had shut him out, put him away, let him go. She really was the first person in his life who kept him close. The reasons why still weren't entirely clear to him, but he wasn't quite ready to deal with that yet. He kneeled next to her recumbent form, and laid his head down next to her on the bed. His arms were splayed across her torso, sort of holding her. It was the closest he could come to intimacy, considering the circumstances. 

"Hippolyta. I'm so sorry," he said to her, muffled by the shiny blanket that swathed the bed. "I know you must hate me, and I can't blame you. But I need you. I love you. I didn't want to lose you." He knew that she couldn't hear him, but he had to say it now, while he still had the courage to do so. 

"I wish I could give you more than what I can. I just can't! I don't know how to get over this, and frankly I don't want to. If you're stuck as a man for the rest of your life... I guess we're done. I don't want it to be done, but I just can't! Forgive me." He could feel his heart breaking into a million pieces, just as he realized that he was dumping her while she was unconscious. Which was right up his alley, where lowdown behavior was concerned. 

She seemed to stir, her arms moving under the blanket. Forgetting his words of a moment ago, he quickly regained his feet and leaned over her, his face inches from hers. He didn't even imagine, not in a million years, what she was about to do. 

Her eyes flickered much the same way his had, and she seemed disoriented and confused. But then, her eyes focused on his face, and she lit up. "Rimmer!" she whispered fiercely. "Oh, God, I missed you." She managed to get her arms free, and wrapped them around his neck. "Kiss me." And, before he could struggle out of her grasp, she had her borrowed, decidedly _male_ lips on his. 

Time slowed to a crawl as Rimmer tried to find his stomach. It had dropped into his legs somehow, and was making odd rumbling noises. His heart had also migrated from its normal home, deciding to take a holiday in his throat, and was thumping around merrily. Then his heart and his stomach decided to go on honeymoon together, and clanged violently into each other somewhere in his sternum. Then his knees wanted in on the fun, and started knocking together like a pair of castinets. His brain, already quite beaten up, decided that it wanted no part of this, gracias. 

But the rest of his body was cooperating with the inevitable. Moments passed, and he convinced himself that, against all available evidence, it was _Hippolyta_ kissing him. He realized that it wasn't all that dissimilar from kissing her in her own body. She did that same little swirly thing with her tongue that he loved so very much. He gave in. He even found himself enjoying it. Sort of. 

Then, suddenly, Hippolyta froze, and she pushed him away with a look of sheer horror in her eyes. "Oh, God! Rimmer!" 

He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Hello. That was... interesting." 

"I am so sorry! I wasn't thinking! I... wait, what?" 

He opened his eyes and managed a weak smile. "Well, the universe seems to be ticking along just fine, no explosions or crashing of the heavens into the firmament. So, how about a bite to eat?" 

Hippolyta regarded him with an open mouth. "You're not mad? You're not vomiting or running away in fear and disgust?" 

He shrugged. "Well, it's not how I'd prefer to spend my time. Kissing a bloke I mean. I think I'd rather go in for a nice game of checkers, but I guess I'm ok." 

Hippolyta coughed, disguising a chuckle. "I owe you an apology, Rimmer. I was out of it, and I'm not..." She stopped here, and threw up her hands. "Oh, screw it. It's about time you got over it. I'm not at all sorry, and I hope you're happy." 

He squinted at her. "You did it on purpose!" 

"Of... of course I didn't! I'm still mad at you for throwing that book at me. I just forgot myself, that's all." She fidgeted, playing with the blanket. "I'm glad you didn't bolt, though. You're getting better." 

"Yes, well, you get a pass this time, what with all the swapping and telepathic nonsense going on. But don't let it happen again." 

She smirked. "Ok, Rimmer. But if I'm stuck as a man forever, you're going to have to. I'm not giving up on this. And you'd better not either, or I'll... I'll do something drastic." 

"What, that wasn't drastic enough?" 

She started laughing. Slowly at first, then louder and faster, until she was grabbing her stomach from laughing so hard. There was a hysterical edge to it. "Fair enough," she giggled. She extended a brown hand to Rimmer, who, after a moment's hesitation, took it. She pulled him in close, and leaned her head against his arm. He lowered his own head, resting it against the small of her neck. A small voice in the back of his head said, _this is ridiculous!_ But he ignored it. She was shaking, which at first he thought was from her laughter, but slowly he realized she was shaking from some other reaction. He leaned back, tilting her chin so she would look at him. 

She wasn't crying, but she looked close to it. "Rimmer, I heard what you said. Please. Don't leave me." 

He started shaking himself. "So you did do it on purpose." 

She nodded, her lower lip trembling. "I'm sorry. I..." She threw her arms around his neck again. "I'm sorry I threatened to leave you! I'm sorry that I'm in the wrong body. I just... I can't... I need you. I've never needed anybody in my entire life, and I need you! You, Rimmer. Not reluctantly, not with provisos. Whole hog, fish or cut bait. I've never begged for anything ever, but I'm begging you. Don't leave." 

Rimmer let her go, and sat down on the bed opposite. He was shaking very hard now. She was asking the impossible... but it wasn't all that impossible, really. He'd kissed her, and while he'd been repulsed, he also let it happen without too much struggle. He looked up after a moment. 

"Hippolyta, I never told you why I'm like this." 

"You don't have to. I..." 

"I want to. So you'll understand what it is you're asking." He took a deep breath, and began to recall the tale of Thicky Holden. Haltingly, chokingly, he told her about the beatings he'd received from his brothers and father. "I was thirteen years old, Hippolyta. Thirteen! You must know how that affected me!" 

Hippolyta nodded slowly. "I do. I get it. Ok, Rimmer. We've got our whole lives ahead of us. If I'm stuck as a man, I'll leave you be. But I would at least expect you to be my friend. Please?" 

Rimmer nodded, relief showing on his face. "Thank you. Yes, I'll be your friend." 

"Will you still love me?" 

He nodded again, slower this time. "I'll always love you. But I can't be with a man." He paused and gulped, "Yet." 

Hippolyta raised her eyebrows. "Don't string me along, Rimmer. Either you love me and you're with me no matter what, or you leave. As much as I want you to stay, if you're ending it, end it now. While I still have a chance to recover. Don't string me along." 

Rimmer blinked. "But, you could get back into your body!" 

"When? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year, twenty, thirty, forty years from now? Do you really want to hold out hope for that long? Aching to have me back, but knowing you can't and don't want to have me like this? While we both slowly go crazy from lust and anger and hurt? This is the rubicon, Rimmer. Either cross the bridge or burn it." 

Rimmer looked confused. "What's a rubicon?" 

"Not important!" snapped Hippolyta. "Do or die, time, Rimmer. Are you with me now? Or never?" 

The seconds ticked past, while they both listened to the ship's air conditioning and lights hum. Hippolyta really couldn't believe this was happening. Just moments before she'd begged him to stay, now she was forcing his hand, making him decide. She held her breath, heart pounding. How could she be so stupid! She didn't know what she would do if... Rimmer finally looked up, and Hippolyta could see the decision he'd made before he even opened his mouth. And her heart broke as he confirmed her suspicions. 

"Never." His voice was low, dead. 

She blinked rapidly, trying not to cry. "So that's that, I suppose." She slid off the bed, trying to remember how to make her legs work. She had to get out of the same room that he was in. "I won't hold you to that friend promise, Rimmer. It was stupid, and pointless, and wouldn't work." She was crying now, and didn't care. "Just... don't take up with anybody else while I'm around. I don't think I could bear it to see you and..." 

"Won't happen," denied Rimmer flatly, his eyes not meeting hers. "The only other option is Kochanski, and she's not interested." Hippolyta thought of a second option, but didn't share it. It would be bad enough to live without him, but to see him with her former body would do her in. Amazingly, he wasn't crying, which suprised the hell out of her. She supposed he'd convinced himself that this was just another argument with his former roommate. Or perhaps he didn't really care one way or the other about her. Or perhaps he'd never loved her to begin with. Or perhaps... she shut her brain down, she was done with him and his excuses and his broken soul. She stumbled from the room, blinded by tears and loss and pain. 

Rimmer watched her leave. For a moment, his face was completely blank and empty. But then his eyes widened slightly and his jaw dropped. _What the hell just happened?_ he thought. Again, he was completely left behind by current events. When God handed out brains, Arnold Judas Rimmer wasn't just not in line, he wasn't even in the right county. Then he realized what he'd done and finally, he began to cry. 

The death of a relationship is a funny thing. Sometimes it's a violent, hair raising screaming match between two people. Two people who, for whatever reason, cannot stand each other any more. The little habits of months and years rasping across worn nerves, until the snores and the farts and the knuckle cracking all explode into one glorious angst fit. Sometimes, it's boredom. The little habits of the years so familiar that there's just no interest anymore. But whatever led up to it, when a relationship is dead, it starts to stink faster than a week dead fish. 

Rimmer wondered, albiet lamely, when his relationship died. Was it when he'd thrown that book at her? Or was it before that, when he'd jerked away from her in the galley? 

Or, could it be that he'd delivered the death stroke himself just now? 

Whatever it was, it was over. Finally, totally over. Even if she did get back into her body, they wouldn't be together after that either. 

A whole eight weeks of his life. Two months. That was it, all, finito, done, over. She'd given up her life, her career, everything, just for him. To follow him out on a grand adventure of survival, because she loved him. And now he'd done the exact opposite of what he wanted. He whinged and moaned that he never had a chance with women. Well, there was your chance, squire. You muffed it. 

She'd tried to make him see. She even got him talking, kissed him against his wishes, made him think differently about the situation. But when it came right down to it, Rimmer could not, physically could _not_ get past her body and see her true self. And he paid the price for it. 

Bai. Bai did this. She did it all. He rested his head in his hands, his eyes drying, a fierce red haze descending on him. Remembering how much it had hurt to try and use her power, remembering how he knew, he just knew, that any further telepathy could turn him into a vegetable... 

He tried again. 



What makes a man? 

This debate has been going on for centuries. Millenia, if the earliest scrolls have been carbon dated correctly. And there are three major theories, all of which have their points. 

The first theory is that manhood is a purely physical attribute. Take a peek down your Y-fronts. Got a penis? You're a man. Good onya. Be proud in your knowledge that 90% of the world's advertising is aimed at you. (The other 10% consists of pouring blue liquid on litttle cylindrical bits of cotton, for some odd reason...) Of course, the main problem with this theory is that, regardless of the equipment, some confused (and some not so confused) men were attracted to other men. Or they were bisexual. Or asexual. Or had the components of their manhood removed, either by accident or by deliberate injury. Are eunichs men? Well, yes. And then again, no. Not to mention those weird mutations, those poor souls designated hermaphrodites. Oh, granted, most hermaphrodites lived full, rich lives. After, and this is the important bit, major reconstructive surgury and gender reassessment therapy. These odd cases stress the point rather than negate it: A man is whatever he says he is. 

Which brings us to our second theory; societal pressures. A man is defined by the car he drives, the clothes he wears, the sports he follows and the brand of beer he indulges in. Put it this way; What would you think when faced with a man who was a professional ballet dancer, who decorated his entire apartment in soft mauves and pinks and lavenders, walked kind of swishy and drank nothing but candy apple martinis? Hello, my gaydar just went off, how about yours? Of course, this man could be straight as an arrow, and have the bonus of knowing exactly turns a woman on. (Foot rubs are favorite...) Whereas the big butch lumberjack wearing a garter belt and a bra under his flannel shirt and Levis... well. 

Society can bring a lot of pressure on a person, regardless of sex, to conform to its values. The mildest of these pressures can take the form of denial of rights, shunning of the misfit at gatherings, and cruel editorials in the Sunday color suppliments. The harshest can lead to tarring and feathering, aggrivated assault and lynchings. The heaping spoonfuls of social scorn is the well that never runs dry, to badly mix metaphors. 

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you're immune to societal pressures. Think of the taboos that your socitety holds. Do you find yourself shuddering at incest? Pedophilia? Murder? Think then, on your comparative anthropology courses, think of the ancient societies where marriage to siblings was compulsory. Egypt's royalty would do just that, to keep the royal blood pure. Think of the countless girls of thirteen or fourteen, forced to marry men two and three times their age, because that's the way it's done. Rome wasn't built in a day, it's true. It was built on the toil of slaves and the wombs of barely mature girls. Think of human sacrifice, down through the ages, from the cannibalistic practice of consuming your enemies to gain their strength, to the stone altars of some blood-thirsty god. 

You think your society is immune from taboos? You think, perhaps, that your society has evolved, no longer participates in these brutal practices? Go down and visit your local branch of government, then. See how they think, how they pass their laws. 

Which brings us to our third theory of manhood; the soul. 

The human soul is a tricky thing. Hard to pin down, hard to define, even harder to observe in action. When you're having a particularly rough day, and you hear about some news item about man's inhumanity to his fellow man... then discovering the soul can be downright impossible. 

But really, the invisible thing that makes a human being aware, that's the hub of the debate. Divine or base, everlasting or a brief spark. Where do we go when we die? What's it all about? Who are we, really, when it comes right down to it? Philosophers have been wrestling with this concept for generations. And usually when not fully sober, either. All philosophers have their weaknesses, their filters for reality. Socrates had his wine. (The hemlock wasn't entirely necessary.) Freud had his cigars. (Never cross a philosopher having a nicotine fit.) Kant had bitter dissillusionment laced with a whiff of laudinum. Rand had sex, but not nearly enough of it, if her books are anything to go by. Even the founding fathers of America had their all-too-human foibles, from Washington and his hemp to Jefferson with his slave girls. 

Does a soul even have a sex? Are the previous-lifers seriously asking us to grasp the fact that we might have been the opposite sex at some point? 

Does a man's soul in a woman's body happen? Aside from those who claim just that, and go under the knife to change themselves to a more fitting body, that is. 

Is Lister even a man anymore? 

Going by his memories, his soul if you will, then yes. Lister is still a man. Going by what society says, then no, he's not, because he just found out what the blue liquid on the cylindrical cotton is all about. Going by the purely physical attributes, then no. No penis. No XY chromosome. 

Two out of three theories agree that Lister is a woman, then. So where does that leave Hippolyta? 

Lister lay on his bed, waiting for the drugs to kick in. Man or woman, it still takes forty-five minutes to an hour for pain killers to be effective. Even in the future. Sleep, what he was really craving, still eluded him. 

Lister was trying to catalogue every separate pain he was experiencing. It was almost like counting sheep, except for the fact that, instead of fluffy white quadrupeds, he was counting agonies. He'd started off with the big one; the way his lower intestine seemed to be putting his uterus in the biological equivilent of a choke hold. He briefly toyed with the idea of setting up a wrestling ring around his belly button. Then he focused on his ankles. They felt like they had been tenderized with a bloody large spiky mallet. Who was the genius who came up with ankles, anyway? Would it really be so bad to be walking around like a giraffe? Evolving ankles was a mistake. Stumps for all, he thought. Ditto for the knees. Who needed 'em? Sitting down was vastly overrated. His back! Hah! He was going to have a few words with his lower back one of these days. Threaten it with replacement. Hell, he already had done. It'd happened once, and if his back wasn't careful, he'd do it again. So there. Then there was the small matter of his breasts. They felt like somebody had taken a pnuematic hammer and whalloped them a few dozen times. Resolving to never again enjoy the sight of a naked breast bouncing up and down, he moved on to his neck. His neck was so stiff that he suspected it of being in collusion with his back. They were obviously looking for new employment. Human resources would hear about their underhanded conspiracy. His head could go with. The pounding in his temples made him think that there was some horrible ritual sacrifce going on in there. Sacrifices with clog dancing. 

Then, like the flipping of a light switch, the pain started to fade. Ah, that was better. He thought for a moment that the drugs had finally started to work, but then realized he wasn't focused on his body anymore. Rather, his concentration was shifted to the person who'd just entered his room. 

It was Hippolyta. And she was obviously crying, although trying to hide the fact. 

Wearily, he tried to decide that whatever it was she was going through wasn't enough to distract him from his mental inventory of pain. However, he was still David Lister, and David Lister was the kind of man who couldn't stand to see women cry. Running this sentence through his head again, he gave up on the more confusing aspects of it and weakly propped himself up on his elbows. 

"Hippolyta? Are you alright?" 

She turned and snarled at him. "Of course I'm not alright, you moron. What the hell kind of question is that?" But this was a weak statement, with hardly any real venom behind it. Lister thought she really must be out of it, if her insults were so below par. 

"You're awake then?" 

"Oh my God. Lister, your becoming a woman has really honed your highly tuned sense of the _motherfucking_ obvious." 

Well, maybe her insults weren't that below par... 

Lister narrowed his eyes. "Well, I beg your pardon, your royal highness, Duchess Pain-In-The-Ass. Pardon me for showing a bit of concern, won't happen again, I promise." 

"Don't do me any favors." She sat down in a chair on the other side of the room, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes. Lister thought for a moment that she was going to sleep again, and wondered why she'd come to his quarters to do so. There was a perfect silence. 

Then she screamed. 

It was an excellent scream, fully supported by the diaphragm, although a touch weak in the upper register. It echoed beautifully around the bare gunmetal walls of the cabin. Her body was so relaxed that it seemed as if the sound wasn't even coming from her. The only thing that gave it away was the agonized violence of her face. Lister clapped his hands over his ears, flinching against the onslaught of sound. 

Hippolyta continued screaming for a good fifteen seconds. Then she stopped, took a deep breath, and continued for another fifteen seconds. During the pause, Lister tenatively uncovered his ears, but had his hands firmly back in place when she started up again. 

Finally, she stopped, panting for breath. Her eyes were still closed, but her cheeks were wet and flushed. Lister stared at her with his mouth hanging open, and slowly lowered his hands. 

"What the smeg are you on about?" asked Lister, knowing that he was going to have a raging case of tinnitus for the rest of his natural life. Or unnatural life, if he remained a woman. 

Hippolyta opened her eyes. "Haven't you ever heard of the primal scream?" she asked hoarsely. 

"Oh, I heard it all right. Why'd you come in here to do it?" Lister laid back down. 

"Because." 

"Excellent reason. Hippolyta, get the smeg out of here. I'm trying to sleep." 

"No. You did this to us, you get to deal with my rage," she answered mildly. "Besides, where the smeg are we? Are we going back to the derelict? And how did I get off that GELF ship? And where the smeg is the watch? And why the smeg are we on an ice moon? And why the smeg aren't you answering my questions?" 

"Go ask Krissy," retorted Lister. "I'm not your smegging palm pilot." Lister turned his face to the wall. "Or, better yet, go ask Rimmer how we got you back. He knows what went on bettter than I do." 

"Fuck him." 

Lister turned back, raising an eyebrow at her. "What'd Rimmer do now? Ask you to catch?" 

"Fuck you." 

"Not tonight. I've got a headache. And it's not a good night for me anyway, which, by the way, I do not understand how you women deal with at all." 

Hippolyta managed a lopsided, weary grin. "I was wondering when that would hit you. Having fun?" 

"Tonnes, just a smegging bucket-full." Lister aimed his middle finger at Hippolyta, and covered his eyes with his other arm. He hated to admit it, but she'd managed to distract him from how much he was hurting. Bitch. He'd been looking forward to a nice long night in which he could wallow in his misery. Just as he was about to get back into the swing of this, he was distracted again. 

The door opened, to reveal two scared looking humanoids, and one worried mechanoid. Kochanski burst into the room, bazookoid locked and loaded, while the Cat and Kryten took flanking positions on either side of her. 

"What's going on? Who's screaming?" Kochanski was eyeballing the room, trying to find what was out of place, if anything. "Are we being attacked again?" 

"Noooo," drawled Hippolyta. "I was just... venting. Put the 'zookoid down, Kochanski." 

Kochanski did so, looking extremely miffed. "Venting? Hippolyta, I've already called you irresponsible, but I'm going to add insane to that." She turned to Kryten. "You can get back to your repairs, Kryten. False alarm." 

"My repairs are complete, ma'am. It was good timing on Miss Hollister's part that she chose to go completely ape-doodoo when she did." 

Hippolyta rolled her eyes. "I'm not crazy, ok?" 

The Cat smirked at her. "You're dating Rimmer. Of course you're crazy." 

The Cat wasn't too clear on what happened next, but he was able to determine later that he'd said exactly the wrong thing. He did know that Hippolyta had jumped up, and her right hand had clenched into a fist, and then his jaw hurt like hell and he was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. 

"Ow! What the...?" 

"Cat. Shut. Up." said Hippolyta, standing over him. She looked like she was beyond all rational recall at that moment, and she was ready to kill. The Cat understood that his best chance at survival was to be utterly silent. So he fainted. 

"That's it! I've had enough of you!" snarled Kochanski. She swung her bazookoid around, and butted Hippolyta in the small of the back with it. Hippolyta grunted once, and then fell to her knees. Lister, who'd been watching this all from his vantage point of the bunk, started at Kochanski's violence. 

"Hey! Watch my back there, Krissy!" 

"Sorry, Dave. But she's out of control." Kochanski aimed the bazookoid at Hippolyta, who was looking unrepentant, if in pain. "Some security officer you are. Did you pull this crap on the Dwarf?" 

"All the time," simpered Hippolyta. "But then, most people didn't have bazookoids handy." 

"Ah. So you're a bully." Hippolyta looked startled by this pronouncement, started to protest. Kochanski cut her off. "I don't like bullies. Especially bullies who hide behind uniforms and ranks." 

For the first time in her life, Hippolyta had no clever comeback, no smart arse remark. She blinked, and looked down at the deck, her eyes belying her confusion and hurt. 

Kochanski noticed, and wisely decided to not persue. Having dished out her judgement, she knew Hippolyta well enough to know that the girl would be docile now, having something to think about. "Kryten," she said, with a slight softening of her voice, "take Miss Hollister to the Galley. The two of you can finish up the ice mining schematics I've left there. Please?" 

Kryten looked skeptical. "I don't want to be alone with her. Who knows what Bai did to her. She's nuttier than a mixed assortment." 

"I'll behave," stated Hippolyta quietely. She looked up. "I'm sorry," she said to the room at large. 

"Your apologies aren't worth a thing right now, Hollister," said Kochanski, her tone mild. "But if you behave yourself, get the water system up and running, we'll discuss everything later." 

Hippolyta nodded, started to get to her feet. Kochanski held out a hand, but kept the gun firmly on her. Hippolyta secretly admired her good sense, even as she tightened her hand on Kochanski's. 

Kochanski noticed, and thumbed the switch that turned off the safety. "Don't. Smegging. Try it. I'll shoot you and not lose a wink of sleep." Lister and Kryten gasped. Hippolyta just narrowed her eyes, knowing that Kochanski wasn't bluffing. 

The thought occured to Hippolyta that she now outmassed Kochanski by quite a bit, and could easily throw her. It was a great temptation, but Hippolyta remembered the gun. And as horrible as she was feeling, getting her silly ass killed for no reason other than pride wouldn't solve a damn thing. The notion that Lister would be stuck in her body didn't even occur to her. The two women eyed each other for a long moment, and even Kryten held his breath. Then, mercifully, Hippolyta let go, and turned to the door. 

"One moment, Hollister." Hippolyta turned back to Kochanski, expecting further recriminations, and decided that she damn well would risk getting blown up if it meant she didn't have to listen to Kochanski whine at her again. "Is Rimmer awake? We could use his help." 

Hippolyta closed her eyes, licked her lips, and lied. "No." 

"Ok. Kryten, fill her in on recent events, as well. I think I'm going to get some rest." 

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten and Hippolyta left the room. 

Kochanski held her defensive pose for a beat longer than necessary, then heaved a great sigh. She propped the bazookoid against the wall, bent down to revive the Cat. Lister, who'd been frozen during this whole exchange, tried to stop his heart from pounding frantically against his ribs. He tried not to think how dangerously close Hippolyta had come to getting a hole blown through his stomach. 

"Jesus Christ on a Vespa, Krissy. What the smeg was she thinking?" 

"Don't know. Don't care. C'mon, Cat. Up you get." The Cat cautiously opened one eye, gazed around the room. 

"Is the psycho gone?" 

Kochanski smirked. "Yes. The psycho, who has had a hell of a rough month and is probably hurting like hell, is gone. You're quite safe from being punched in the jaw again." 

The Cat sat up, stuck out his tongue, put a hand to his jaw. "If I bruise, I'll have to change. Bruises don't go with this suit!" He regained his feet, shook his head, smoothed his suit down. "You wouldn't have really shot her, right Bud Babe?" 

"If she puts one more toe out of line, I'll gladly give her flesh wound. If only as incentive to politeness." 

The Cat looked confused. "What was that second part again?" 

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "No, Cat. I wouldn't have shot her. But don't tell her that, ok? Now scat. Lister and I are going to sleep. Go check in on Rimmer, please?" 

"Ok, but only because I'm already going to the Medi-place, got me? I need an ice-pack." 

As he left, Kochanski began to wearily remove her clothes. "God, I stink. I so need a shower." 

Lister eyed his lover, his mind whirling. "Kriss, you are a very, very scary woman." 

"Only when provoked, Dave. Only when provoked." 

"You could have killed my body, Kristine. That would have been the end of me, you know that?" 

Kochanski bit her lower lip, sat down on the edge of the bed next to Lister. "Dave, that honestly didn't occur to me. I'm so sorry." 

Lister mulled this over, and decided that he did want to say it. "Well, it was her fault. I can't blame you. She's such a pain in the ass. Sometimes I really, genuinely hate her. Why?" 

"Why do you hate her? Or why is she such a pain in the ass?" 

"Both!" 

Instead of answering directly, Kochanski asked, "Has she ever told you about how she ended up on the Dwarf in the first place?" 

"Not really. She did once mention a boarding school that was practically a prison..." 

"Well, it's not my place to tell you. Ask her sometime, when she's calmed down a bit. You'll get a hell of an instructive answer." Kochanski lay down next to Lister, arraigned the blankets. "As for why you hate her, well, I'd think it's obvious. She's replaced you as Rimmer's confidante." 

"What?!" Lister sat bolt upright, undoing Kochanski's careful blanket arrangement. "Are you saying I'm jealous of her? Over Rimmer?!" 

"That and the fact that she's a trigger happy, violent, anger-filled person with a huge talent for pissing people off deliberately." 

Lister snorted, laid back down. "Understatement of the millenia, love." He laid his head on her shoulder, his head still swimming from the recent events. "Krissy," he asked eventually, "do you think we're stuck like this? Hippolyta and me, I mean. Will I eventually turn into her? And her into me? Permanently?" 

Kochanski didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she answered. "I hope not, Dave. I sincerely hope to God not." 



The Cat tenderly put the cool chemical pack up against his jaw in the medi-bay, eyeing himself in the reflective chrome of a nearby cabinet. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rimmer's reflection as well. Rimmer was indeed unconscious, which jibed with what Hippolyta had told them all about his not having woken up yet. So it didn't even occur to the Cat that somehow Rimmer had moved from one cot to another, and that he was deathly pale, sweating, and mumbling faintly. 

And as the Cat muttered to himself about his minor injuries, he didn't even notice that Rimmer suddenly stopped breathing. 

_**Author's Note:** I am such a whore, I know. Don't even say it. I go for months and months without a chapter, and then I do this. But then, I'm all about the three act structure. Act 1: Get your characters up a tree. Act 2: Throw rocks at 'em. And these are some pretty big smegging rocks I've chucked, wouldn't you say? _

Don't worry. Act 3 is always about getting 'em out of the tree, whole and hale and happy. 

**To Be Continued...**


	9. Week Three

  
_Gasp. _

Gasp. 

Gasp. 

Kochanski wasn't exactly sleeping. Actually, it was closer to the truth to say that she wasn't sleeping at all. Oh, sure, her eyes were closed and her breathing was even, but her mind was racing along at a million miles a second. She was so exhausted that she could not sleep. Her mind refused to shut down. 

She _hated_ that. 

She wanted to open her eyes, but they were so heavy and fatigued that they wouldn't cooperate. The darkness of her quarters wasn't absolute, and the haze of the "night time" lights bleeding into the room from under the crack in the door wasn't as dim as it should be. 

She really, _really_ hated that. 

She realized that she was becoming violent. Her temper, already barely held in check, was beginning to become more and more apparent. Within the last three weeks, she caught herself again and again letting her temper get the better of her. She'd promised herself that she wasn't going to be... like that again. She'd learned her lessons well. Mostly. 

The thing that the school psychologists had failed to disclose to her parents was that Cyber School had a tendency to, ahem, give young ladies and gentlemen raging psychotic tendencies. 

In other words, upon leaving Cyber School, Kochanski had gone off the rails. 

She recalled the night in the ducts with the Cat, Kryten and Lister, oh so long ago. She'd been coy, explaining cutely about the rails being _here_ and her being _there_ and ha ha so adorable. 

It was closer to the truth to say that the rails were in Greenwich and she was in Sydney. 

There was shock, of course. And horrors. Horrors unimaginable. For twelve years, she'd been completely immersed in her own perfect fantasy. It wasn't that she didn't know what was going on in the real world, but rather that she chose to ignore it completely, just like the rest of her school chums. 

The first time she'd seen a homeless person, she'd had screaming hysterics. 

It wasn't just the unpleasantness of the world, either. She'd been incredibly shocked upon learning that not all men were sweet, shy and romantically inclined. Her first real relationship out of school had been... fine. 

Just fine. 

She expected every day to be fireworks and blazing arguments, flashing eyes and sore bottoms. What she got was... boring. Beyond boring. He adored her, and he bored her. 

It wasn't just the end of childhood, it was the end of the world, almost literally. She got caught breaking back into the school one night, trying to plug herself back in. The school didn't even press charges, as it turned out this was a common occurrence. 

This was the catalyst for her rail jumping. 

The years between schooling and joining the Space Corps had been a blur. If she concentrated, she could remember certain instances of those intervening six years. She was almost positive nothing illegal had been done... Well, nothing life threatening... Well, nothing that threatened the lives of others... Well... 

It was bad enough losing six years of your life. What made that six years even worse was the nagging suspicion in the back of her head that someday, someone in a dark, ill-fitting suit was going to tap her on the shoulder and present an invoice for the missing chunk. Gangsters and cyber-punks had their own system of checks and balances, wholly separate from the rest of polite society. And Kochanski suspected that she was in for a bit of balancing from these people. 

Cyber-punks had their own style, a perfect mixture of Bohemian fug and silicone shine. Their clothing was perfect, their hygiene less than stellar. They had access to the top-of-the line in computers, but rarely access to showers. Endless cups of coffee pounded in dark internet cafes, drunk by people who could still program in FORTRAN if they felt like being silly. Getting a MicroAppleSun computer to run LOGLAN was the height of code-monkey pretension. Forget Linux, these guys were old-old-old school. 

They were also heavily into Nigerian Bank Spam. Spam had to come from somewhere. It came from the brains and fingers of Kochanski and her ilk. 

Not to mention the fact that most of them were involved in the development of Better Than Life. 

Drugs? Of course there were drugs. Hash being the fall back, the old stand by, the treasured friend. But in their more manic phases, they would smoke, snort or shoot anything that didn't shoot back. Freebees, dingers, Buckyballs. Crack, smack, and whack. At one point Kochanski had even been in the same room with an open bag of Bliss. She hadn't gone closer than 15 feet away from it and had still gotten high. 

Close calls like this made up the entirety of her life. 

She'd joined the Corps to get off Earth in a hurry. Cleaning up her act, actually brushing her hair and shaving her armpits, and presenting the face that she'd perfected in Cyber-School. They'd taken her on in the capacity of Associate Astronavigator, and she had swiftly proven that she had a head for numbers and an uncanny sense of direction. Her promotion was swift and quiet. 

Then, disaster in the form of David Lister and a cat. 

Kochanski had fallen for the Scouser because he reminded her of all her friends back home. She never told him this, because she figured that he wouldn't want to be compared to the pert and pretty cyber-punks. Tim the catering officer had been... a diversionary tactic, and she'd been somewhat nonplussed that Lister let her go so easily. The thing with the cat was icing on the cake of their non-communication. She'd taken the beast, tried to disintegrate it, and then decided that she'd wait a bit. Use it as a sort of a opening gambit in getting him to talk to her again. "Sorry, I couldn't do it, do you want her back? Oh, and me? I come with the cat, you see." Ingenious. But a week went by, and then two, and then three, and she couldn't bring herself to face him. He'd avoided her entirely. The first feelings of resentment stirred in her, and she held a wholly irrational grudge against him for it. 

Then she'd been caught with the damn thing before she could follow through. 

She was about to give into the captain's demands and hand over the cat, when she got a bit of a shock. A particularly juicy piece of gossip started making the rounds. George MacIntire, flight coordinator and third officer, had not died of natural causes, as previously suspected. He'd gotten into some serious debt, and had been... balanced. By a man Kochanski knew all too well. She'd known him immediately from the descriptions that were circulating on the Dwarf. "Thug," as she knew him from her days in the cyber-cafe, had once laid a beefy hand on her shoulder and told her he... liked her. He told her, in no uncertain terms, that she would like him back. This scared her silly. Her random disappearance was sure to have annoyed him. So the choice facing her; hand over the cat, or go into stasis... She'd smiled secretly to herself and went into the booth gladly. In stasis, nobody can flatten your fingers with a lobster mallet. 

Kochanski had been quite amused to discover that her counterpart in this universe, dead three million years and not reanimated by the nanos for some reason, was something of a goody-good. She did a bit of digging on this universe's Dwarf, and discovered that her other self had an exemplary record of perfect behavior. But Dave never compared her to "his" Kristine. Even after all the times she compared him to "her" Dave. 

Interesting. Why hadn't Dave drawn the obvious parallel? Could it be that perhaps he didn't realize the differences? 

Or could it be because he did realize it? And kept his mouth shut? 

Kochanski did not like where this line of thought was taking her at all. She pushed that topic away, and found her thoughts turning to Hippolyta and Rimmer. Not that that topic was any better, but, seeing as it was their fault that she was stranded along with them, it was a common topic. 

Something had happened to them, she knew it. Something had finally snapped. The whole dromedary, straw, and breaking thing had occurred. And, knowing what she did about both of them, there were going to be some serious angst fits coming up very soon, flitting about as if they owned the place. 

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Kochanski felt something sharp and hot pull at the bridge of her nose. She instinctually batted at it with a finger, but that did not ease the itch. 

Something was very wrong. Very, very wrong. To her utter amazement, she knew that it had something to do with Rimmer. Something bigger than usual was wrong with Rimmer. 

He wasn't there. Or, rather, he _was_ there, but was drifting. He was losing his way. 

Kochanski didn't exactly know what was going on, at this point. Convinced she was dreaming, she reached out and laid a steadying hand on Rimmer's shoulder. He stopped drifting and turned into her, clutching at her like a baby monkey. Kochanski didn't flinch, but continued guiding him back to where he needed to be. 



_Gasp. _

Gasp. 

Ga-- Sigh. 

 

And now, finally completely asleep, Kochanski rolled over and hugged Lister tightly to her. 

 

Hippolyta didn't know whether to be angry, ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, or what. Any combination of the four at this point would have worked out just fine. Embarrassment made her angry, and anger made her work harder so she'd never be embarrassed again. 

But she wasn't any of these things. She was just... sad. 

She found herself really missing Rimmer. Missing his habits, his postures, his kisses. But, of course, she'd just gotten concrete proof that he was in no way capable of having an adult relationship. A small, nagging suspicion in the back of her head told her that she was incapable of that as well. This she ignored. She wasn't one for introspection. If there was a problem, you hit things until the problem stopped. Easy enough. 

She discovered that the male form she was currently wearing gave her a very different reaction to sadness than when she was a woman. As a woman, she would cry, and eat lots of junk food, and curl up in a little ball and hide under a pile of blankets. As a man, she found that she wanted to do the same things, only this time she wanted to eat curries instead of chocolate. And watch American football. 

These desires did nothing to improve her mood. 

Once in the cockpit of the 'Bug, Hippolyta didn't say much to The Cat or Kryten. But Kryten, as per usual, was quite keen on chattering away. 

"Miss Hippolyta, could you please explain what is going on? My memory circuits are not supplying the necessary information for me. I find myself more confused than a Valley Girl in a university physics class." 

"Yeah, Blondie, what the hell is going on?" This last was The Cat, who still insisted on calling her Blondie, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

Hippolyta took a deep breath and turned away from the mining schematics. She counted to ten under her breath in German, and then said, "I don't really know. The watch is gone, Rimmer's unconscious, I'm still in Lister's body, and we're mining water for our system. That's as far as I go, I get off at the next stop." She turned back to her work, logging the gallons of water being processed. 

Kryten, who was always quick on the uptake, recognized the severely depressed mood Hippolyta was in. It was so far out of character for her, he found himself momentarily shocked. When he accessed his data banks for information as to how to handle this new development, he shuffled the Heimlich maneuver to the bottom of the list, as a precautionary measure. Why that was weighted so heavily he would never know... 

"Cat, could you please excuse us for a moment?" 

"You mean I don't have to work? About time you recognized my needs, Plastic Man." In a flash of maroon silk, The Cat streaked out of the cockpit. When Hollister didn't even turn to throw insults at his back, Kryten realized that she was worse off than he suspected. 

"Miss Hollister?" Kryten took the chair opposite hers and looked at her with mechanoid concern. "Are you feeling quite well?" 

In answer, her eyes still on her screen, Hippolyta raised one brown hand and waved it in Kryten's face. "No, I'm still in Lister's body. Any other stupid questions?" 

Kryten was not swayed by this. "You've been in Mr. Lister's body for almost three weeks now. Yet you've never been as, ahem, 'down in the mouth,' as you are right now. What's the matter, Miss Hollister?" 

"Kryten, give it a rest, ok? You don't give a flying rabbit crap about me or my problems. You don't like women. We know this. Just leave me alone." 

"I beg to differ, Miss Hippolyta. I do give a flying rabbit crap. Those bunnies can float and shit all they want and I'll still care!" 

Hippolyta blinked and stared incredulously at the mechanoid. "What?" 

"You just said. Flying rabbit crap. I've never encountered a flying rabbit who deliberately voided its bowels overhead in the past, but I'm always open to new experiences." 

"Kryten. Go away. I'm fine." 

"No you're not." 

"Yes I am." 

"No, quite clearly you're not." 

"Yes, I am." 

"No, you're..." 

_"IF YOU SAY 'NO YOU'RE NOT' ONE MORE TIME I WILL PERSONALLY SOLDER YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND SHOVE YOUR HEAD UP YOUR RECTAL CAVITY!"_

Ah, that did it. Having Hollister in a temper was much more par for the course than having her in a funk. "Miss Hollister, please..." began Kryten, only to be cut off with her standing up and leaning across the console at him, her hands clutching at the edge like a vulture. 

"Please. What. Kryten?" 

"Please tell me what happened. How did you suddenly reappear back on the ship?" 

Hollister visibly relaxed. "That I couldn't tell you, Kryten. I was on the G.E.L.F. ship, then I was running with Rimmer somewhere, and then I was back here, sans watch and consciousness."

This was news to Kryten. "Running? Running where? And toward what?" 

Hollister blinked. "Dunnow. It was... blurry. Grey. Like clouds, or a huge field of cotton." She paused for a moment, trying to marshall her thoughts, screwing her lips up in concentration. When she continued, she sounded almost frightened. "Like there was nowhere to run to, but we had to run. There was a woman... she was doing something to Rimmer. He was in pain. I fought her, but couldn't... Like some sort of nightmare..." She trailed off, staring down at her hands. 

Kryten processed all of this, and remembered how his programming had gone absolutely haywire when he'd been transported back onto the 'Bug himself. If it had befuddled his hardware, then the human brain was sure to come out of that sort of thing much worse of it. Hippolyta was apparently suffering from wounds that went deeper than the flesh. And they had apparently scabbed over faster than he would have liked, since she was having such a hard time remembering what had happened. Kryten made a mental note to ask Rimmer when he awoke. 

"Interesting," said Kryten, turning to the console. "Access query: telepathy, instances in humans, from early 20th century to late 25th. Execute." Kryten thanked his lucky stars that all Starbugs had the Encyclopedia Ionia encoded to their hardware. There was a subtle whirr, and the screen filled with text. "Ah, excellent." He turned to Hippolyta. "What was the name of the individual who took the watch from you, Miss Hollister?" 

Hippolyta bit her lower lip and rolled her eyes up to the left, trying to remember. "Bai. I think," she amended. She also had no idea where the mechanoid was going with this. 

"Thank you. A female, I assume?" At Hippolyta's nod, he turned back to the console. "Access query: Cross reference previous search with human female, name Bai. Execute." Another whirr, and the screen filled with text again, some of which was blinking red and white. Hyperlinks to pictures within the system. Hippolyta couldn't read it. It was too small from where she was sitting. Kryten then touched the screen, one of the hyperlinks, and pulled up a picture. 

"Is this the woman you and Rimmer were chasing?" 

Hippolyta gasped, because there on the screen in front of her was the hated face of Bai. Bai looked like she was about 35 or so in that picture, and she was standing in front of some numbers that were painted on the wall. A mug shot. Under the picture was a small text splash, bulleted and bolded at certain points. 

"Tell me what you know about telepathy, Miss Hollister." 

Hippolyta looked confused. "Telepathy? It's impossible. It's strictly in the realm of bad serial sci-fi." 

"Not precisely, no. There were numerous experiments with telepathy back in the twenty-first century. Then they stopped. Look." 

Kryten stood, and allowed Hippolyta to take his seat. Ignoring this breach of usual operating procedure, Hippolyta rounded the console and sat down, peering at the screen. She kept her glance averted from the face, however, because she felt the overwhelming desire to reach through the screen and knock her teeth out. 

"Bai Liang-Wu. Age: 36. Height: 4 feet, 11 inches. (149.86 cm) Weight: 92 pounds. (41.7 kg) Last known location: Tianjin, China." Standard arrest information. 

Then it got weird. 

"Known abilities: Telepathy, telekenisis, illusory projection. Considered extremely dangerous. Do not approach under any circumstances." 

Digesting this new information, Hippolyta turned to Kryten. "She's a mind reader? That's impossible..." Then she remembered what Rimmer had said to her in the medi-bay. _I'll give you a pass, what with all the swapping and telepathic nonsense going on..._ She'd thought he was being sarcastic and cute. She realized now that he'd been dead serious. Telepathy? Jesus. 

"No, it's sadly rather possible indeed." Kryten took Rimmer's usual chair at the station directly across from his own. "In the late 21st century, there was some sort of technological disaster, involving something that, for lack of a better metaphore, 'switched on' all the telepathic abilities in some humans. I'd have to dig some more, but I think Bai was one of those people." 

"Kryten, it's three million years later. She should be dead." 

"So should you," pointed out Kryten, unkindly. Hippolyta pursed her lips in annoyance at him, but couldn't remain annoyed for long. Her gaze kept going back to the word "telepathy" on the screen. 

The notion of somebody rummaging about in her head made her very, very uncomfortable. She'd had so many secrets in her life that the threat of having them laid bare gave her the cold chills. For instance, there was the way that she had felt about Rimmer when they'd first gotten together... She shoved that thought quickly out of her head, just in case there was indeed some malevolent eavesdropper lurking about. 

"Kryten, are you seriously telling me that this woman from thirty thousand millenia ago is responsible for stealing that watch? Why? What for?" 

"That, I do not know," answered the mechanoid. "This Bai has quite a criminal history behind her. She could just be a common thief." 

"No," answered Hippolyta immediately. "She was... triumphant. It wasn't just a trinket to her. It had meaning, somehow." Hippolyta read further into the dossier, looking for some clue. 

_Bai, aka The Jade Dragon, aka North Wind Sister, aka Queenie (self-inflicted nickname). After becoming infected with the telepath virus, used her new abilities to steal many valuable items from the Chinese state. Upon her discovery by the American authorities in Detroit..._ Hippolyta started. This Bai had spent time in her home town! _...Bai convinced them that she was a different person entirely and escaped. She was arrested in Milton Keynes six months after the Detroit incident. She allowed herself to be taken, she claimed. This picture, taken at a local precinct, is the only existing shot of her. Later, her arresting officer, the prison matron and processing officers were all discovered dead, and she was gone. Cause of death was never determined, but all four victims were discovered after autopsy to have lost considerable brain mass. After this incident, she was not seen again. She is presumed dead, but there is no date of death on record._ Hippolyta shuddered. Bai wasn't just a thief. Oh, no. 

"Miss Hollister, what did you find?" Wordlessly, she stood aside and allowed Kryten to read over what she just had. 

If mechanoids could go pale, Kryten would have been as white as a sheet, if the look on his face was anything to go by. "Yes, well. Perhaps she wants the watch to switch to somebody else's body. She's three million years old. How she lived this long, I haven't a clue. But she must be beyond needing a Zimmer Frame at this point. A fresh, new body..." 

"Then why didn't she just take mine when she had the chance? Or Kochanski's? Or Rimmer's, if she's not being picky about sex? Or Lister's, if she's not being picky at all?" 

"Perhaps she's a stupid telepath?" 

Hippolyta shot Kryten a look. "Not funny." 

"Sorry. Levity mode cancel." 

Hippolyta leaned against the bulkhead, one arm across her stomach, chin resting in the other's cupped hand. This was baffling. She was a Security Officer, for smeg's sake. She was supposed to be able to solve this sort of puzzle. Then it hit her. 

_Her_ brain had been trained to this sort of task. Lister's was trained to guzzling lager and lusting after Kochanski. This brain, no matter the personality inhabiting it, wasn't used to logic puzzles and putting together small clues to form a satisfying whole. 

"Damn his eyes," she breathed. 

"Beg your pardon?" 

"Nothing, Kryten. Just moaning about Lister's stunted mental capacities." 

"Ah, is it Morale Night again?" 

She cocked an eyebrow at that. "What?" 

"Never mind," he answered. He turned back to the screen and continued reading. "Presumed to have been scanned with the WeKnowYourStuff adware..." Kryten paused, and looked startled. "Adware? Surely not..." 

"What? 

"This is saying that the technological disaster I mentioned earlier was caused by adware on the first internet protocols. If that's true, then there must have been many, many more telepaths." His fingers flew across the keyboard, not bothering to do a vocal search of the database. After a long few moments, he sat back, apparently stunned. "Snap my motherboard..." he breathed. 

"What? And, I warn you Kryten, you make me say 'what' one more time and I'll remove your brain and replace it with a bowl of spaghetti." 

"There were, approximately, five hundred thousand victims of this pop-up plague. All died or went insane within a period of three weeks. Those that went insane were rounded up and executed by the American government." 

Hippolyta went cold. "That's... that's murder..." Sure, they were telepaths, but they were still people. 

"It gets better. This same software was later used to develop total immersion video games, including Better Than Life." Kryten pulled up yet another page of data, all about the deadly game. The addicts of this game were far too numerous, and its subsequent banning... 

Something tugged at Hippolyta's subconscious and she said, "Wait, pull up that list of BTL developers again." Kryten did so. Not even knowing what she was looking for, Hippolyta ran her eyes down the list. 

The name, which she had registers but not consciously recognized, hit her like a ton of bricks when she read it again. 

"Holy shit. Kryten?" 

"I see it too." 

"That's impossible." 

"We should..." 

"Yeah." 

They stared at the name for a moment longer, then ran in a complete panic out of the cockpit. They were going to go talk to one of the developers right now. They just hoped she was still awake. 

"I'm trying to sleep!" Kochanski stood wedged half-in half-out of the door to her quarters, her rumpled, brown hair standing out in a crazy tangle against the cream white of the bulkhead. Only her head, neck and one shoulder was visible. The rest of her was hidden away behind the door. Hippolyta knew that move. That was the move that said, I'm naked behind this door so don't even _think_ about opening it further. 

"Get dressed, Kochanski, we have to talk." 

"I haven't slept in almost 40 hours, Hollister. Piss off." 

"You were involved in the development of Better Than Life, weren't you?" 

Kochanski's eyes widened, and her head disappeared from the crack, and she slammed the door behind her. 

That was surprising. Hippolyta and Kryten glanced sideways at each other. Then Hippolyta started hammering on the door. This was a potentially life and death situation, and Kochanski was playing ostrich. "Open up, Kochanski! You know something about this Bai bitch we're facing and you need to spill! Open up! Open..." The door swung open, and Hippolyta accidentally knocked on Lister's face. 

They both jumped back, Lister cussing and rubbing at his forehead. Hippolyta covered her embarrassment by saying, "I still hate what you've done with my hair, Lister. Where's Kochanski?" 

"She ran into the bathroom," said Lister. "What was that you said about Better Than Life?" 

"Kochanski helped develop it." 

Lister's reaction was not one that Hippolyta was expecting. Instead of blinking in confusion, asking "She what now?" and gibbering in shock, Lister shrugged slightly and said, "Yeah, so?" 

"You knew?" 

"Yeah, she told me a couple years back when we were back on Floor 13. No big deal, she said she did graphics design." 

Hippolyta and Kryten shared yet another sideways glance. "Mister Lister, Better Than Life is a terrible drug! Worse than heroin, Bliss and methamphetamenes combined! And you just shrug off the fact that Miss Kochanski was involved in its development?" 

"Kryten, she didn't know!" Lister looked angry now. "She started off as a graphic designer, her work got picked up by the company, and the next thing she knew her backgrounds were being used to brainwash people. She didn't know!" 

"And she told you this?" 

"Yes!" He whirled on Hippolyta now. "I don't appreciate what you're incinerating here, Hollister!" 

"Insinuating?" 

"Yeah, that too!" 

"So if she was a background graphics gal, why is her name listed under code monkey?" 

"What? Where? Where did you find that?" Now the confusion came out. Hippolyta felt slightly gratified. 

"They found it in the Encyclopedia Ionia, I'll be willing to bet," came Kochanski's voice from the bathroom. She emerged a moment later, wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and an oversized black teeshirt. She crossed the room and stood in front of Hippolyta, looking like she was facing a judge in a court of law whose authority she didn't recognize. "Well done, Nancy Drew. So are you going to turn me in? Oh, wait, you can't, we're three million years in the wrong direction from any juristictions." 

Hippolyta blinked. "I don't want to turn you in, Kochanski. I don't give a smeg. What you did in your own private time before you joined the JMC is your business." 

It was Kochanski's turn to blink. "I broke the law. And you don't care?" 

"Wrong, Kochanski. You didn't break the law. Your counterpart in this universe did. And she's not here." 

Kochanski's mouth dropped. "You're... oh my God, you're right." 

"Thought I'd forget that important detail? Ever wonder why the nanobots didn't resurrect your counterpart here?" 

"Occasionally." 

"Wait, hold on, I'm lost," interrupted Lister. "Krissy came from another dimension, yeah. But what's this about her..." Then his eyes widened. "Holy smeg, you're right. If the nanos did the job they were supposed to, we would have ended up with two Kristines. But we didn't." 

"Right. Still don't know why. But that's not the point. The point is, no matter what universe, it seems Kochanski was instrumental in getting Better Than Life out to the consumer public. How?" 

Kochanski leaned her upper thighs against a nearby table and closed her eyes. "I was a cyber-punk. I had... some friends. My schooling in an entirely virtual setting made me a perfect guinea pig for their little game. I helped them beta-test it. And, believe me, when I did, I never had a single problem getting out." 

"But did you write any code, Kochanski?" 

"Not a single line." 

"Damn!" 

"Krissy... you were a Game-Head?" Lister sounded like he was about to start screaming blue murder. Hippolyta couldn't blame him one bit. When somebody you know is a self-confessed former drug addict, and has kept it hidden for thirteen years... 

Kochanski gave a soft look to her lover. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Dave. It was a long time ago! I was 18, just out of high school, and dumber than a brick. I'm so sorry." 

"You lied to me, Kris. You said you were a background graphics designer. You said you'd never played." 

"Dave..." 

"Hey, touching and angsty as this may be," said Hippolyta, "we're up to our armpits in smegging bad times and don't have the luxury of pounding out personal relationship problems at the moment, ok?" 

"Look, just because you and Rimmer are having issues..." began Lister, but he stopped. He stopped because the look on Hippolyta's face told him that if he didn't stop, he'd wind up as a red smear across the deck. But, amazingly, she didn't start screaming, didn't start lashing out and hitting whoever she could reach. 

"Yes, we're having problems. In fact, we're not seeing each other any more. He left me. Rimmer is in a hell of his own devising at the moment, and that's where I want him left. Clear?" 

There was a moment of silence, before Kryten spoke up softly. "Miss Hollister, let's let them get back to sleep..." 

"Wait, Kryten. One more thing. Kochanski, the telepathic adware. How much of that code was used in BTL?" 

"How did you...? My God, the encyclopedia must have been updated a lot while we were out of circulation. That tidbit wasn't ever discovered when we were... younger." 

"How much of the code was used, Kochanski?" 

"Every smegging line." 

Hippolyta rocked back on her heels, staring in shock at the brunette. "So when Bai said it wasn't me she was after... And when she had us trapped in Rimmer's mind... Kochanski, she tried to posess you, too, didn't she?" 

"Is that what that was?" mused Kochanski, rubbing her at her eyes. "I thought I'd eaten some bad food or something..." Her nonchalant tone betrayed her fear from that moment. 

"But she couldn't," breathed Hippolya, looking down at the floor, chewing on a fingernail, a habit of Lister's that she'd inherited. "Why couldn't she...? Why? Oh, damn it, Lister, why'd you have to be so stupid? I can't concentrate with this brain of yours!" 

"Hey, steady on!" exclaimed Lister, who'd moved back to the bunk and was sitting with his head in his hands. 

"It's right on the tip of my tongue... Damn damn damn smegging DAMN!" She thrust a finger in Lister's direction and said, "You! You did this to us! You use my brain and figure this out! Think, you asshole!" 

Lister looked shocked, then perplexed. "So there's software that makes you telepathic, and it was used in BTL, and Kochanski played it in the earlier phases..." He stopped, and then his face lit up like a lamp, and he laughed out loud. "Are you seriously telling me that you think Krissy's telepathic? Get outta town!" 

But Hippolyta didn't laugh along with him. Instead, she sighed in satisfaction as a large piece of the puzzle fell into place. "That's exactly what I'm suggesting, Lister. Kristine Kochanski has latent telepathic abilities." 

"What?" Kochanski had paled, then blushed, then paled again. "That is the most ridiculous piece of nonsense I've heard since my first semester of poli-sci!" 

"But it's true. And you've got them buried so deep you don't even know you have them. When you called me a bully earlier, I shut up real quick, didn't I?" 

"Of course you did, you were pissed off." 

"No, Kochanski. You shut me up. Mentally. You're doing it even now. Projecting your emotions at us so we feel uncomfortable." 

"I don't feel uncomfortable," said Kryten. 

"I do," said Lister. 

"Oh please, Hollister. You're talking rubbish." 

"These are not the droids you're looking for?" asked Hippolyta. "Kochanski, think about it. Think back to your first days on this ship. Think about how Lister kept missing your portal connection." 

"Yes, he was being a prat!" yelled Kochanski. 

"No, he was giving in to your subconscious desire to stay with a real live boy as opposed to a hologram. I'm right, you know I'm right." 

"Hollister, you've had your brains scrambled by what you've been through this last three weeks. The smell of the G.E.L.F. got to you and rotted them out. I am NOT telepathic!" 

"Prove it." 

"Prove it?" 

"Yeah. Prove it. I'm thinking of a number between one and..." 

"Anything I say, you'll just agree with, Hollister! I'm not stupid!" 

"Ok, fine." She turned to Lister. "You think of a number. And try to let Kochanski read your mind." 

Lister turned to Kochanski. "Ok. Go." 

"Dave!" 

"Hey, she might be onto something here. Go for it." 

Kochanski rolled her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "No. I'm not playing this stupid game with you. I'm tired and I want to go back to sleep. Hollister, go back and get the water specs and leave me alone!" 

"Kris..." 

"No! You've all gone absolutely mad! No!" 

"Krissy..." 

"NO!" 

"Kristine!" 

"Seventy three! Alright? It's bloody seventy three!" 

There was a moment of silence following this pronouncement, in which Lister looked over at Hippolyta with a slightly glazed look on his face. Then, silently, he nodded once. 

Kochanski seemed not to believe it. "What? You're serious? It really _was_ seventy three?" Lister nodded again. "You're not just saying that?" Lister shook his head, his eyes wide with fear and awe. 

"Pick up that book, Kochanski," whispered Hippolyta, pointing at a slim comic book on the nearby table. Kochanski started to reach for it, but Hippolyta grabbed her wrist. "Pick it up without using your hand." 

The mood in the room was so intense now that Kochanski didn't even protest once. Curiosity overpowering common sense, Kochanski stared at the book for a moment, and was as startled as everybody else when it levitated up off the table and did a small swoop. 

"Smegging hell..." breathed Lister, his mouth open like a bass on a fishing line. 

Hippolyta let Kochanski go, and turned to Kryten, her eyes shining with triumph and power. "Kryten, see if we've taken enough water on board. If we have, we need to get underway. Even if we haven't, see if we can make do with what we've already got. It's going to take a week to get back there, but we've got a surprise for Bai. Oh yes." 

"Miss Kochanski... that... you... I I I I I guh guh guh guh..." Kryten was stuck again. 

"Oh, damn it." Hippolyta walked over to Kryten and slapped him on the back of his plastic skull. This seemed to knock the skip out, and Kryten wibbled for a bit before turning to stare at Kochanski. 

Kochanski swallowed, and then ran into the bathroom. They all heard the retching noises as she vomited for a bit. Hippolyta came down from her minor power trip and realized what a sanity shattering thing she'd just exposed Kochanski to. And Lister. Lister, too, looked like he wanted to vomit. Hell, she wasn't feeling so hot herself. Nausea swelled in her abdomen, and Hippolyta clenched her jaw tightly to keep herself from joining Kochanski in the john. 

Oh, smeg. Kochanski was doing it. Now that the cat was out of the bag, her thoughts and feelings were echoing back, lashing out, influencing those around her. 

And there wasn't a damn thing Hippolyta could do to keep herself from running out of the room and barfing all over the floor. 

A moment later, she was done, and was doubled over, clutching at her knees, panting like a dog on a hot day. _Smegging hell, we've got to figure out how to control this. But how? And, what if she... oh smeg..._ Kochanski and Lister appeared in the doorway, both of them leaning on Kryten for support. Everybody but the mechanoid looked green around the gills, and Hippolyta noticed that Lister's newly shorn hair was soaked through with sweat. 

"Well," said Kochanski weakly, "if we need to get back at Bai, I can just make her chunder till her intestines explode..." 

Hippolyta laughed, but it was a a nervous laugh. All smart ass remarks were gone now, and her mind was spinning, trying desperately to blank itself out. The creeping horrors finally caught up with her. All thoughts of power and weapons and using Kochanski to defeat Bai were gone. In their place was a terrified scream, a frantic, panicked desire to keep Kochanski out of her head. Cautiously, Hippolyta turned to Kryten. "Let's get going. I'm going to go..." and the lie that popped into her head was simple, "...check in on Rimmer." 

"Rimmer?" asked Kochanski, apparently not noticing the lie. "Oh, God, Rimmer! Had a dream about Rimmer!" 

Lister looked at Kochanski like a puppy being blamed for a mess the cat made. "You had a dream about Rimmer?" 

"Not that kind of dream. It was... weird. He was scared, and lost... and wandering... away..." 

When the meaning of these words hit the group, they all swallowed. "He died, you mean," said Hippolyta, her voice completely flat. "You dreamed he died." Seeing the devastated look on Kochanski's face, Hippolyta suddenly knew, she just knew, that it was true. And, because she had to know... "He's dead now, isn't he? Really dead? Oh, my God, he's dead. He's lost and gone and dead, isn't he?" She was babbling. "He's dead, I killed him because I left, oh God he's dead, he's dead..." 

Kochanski didn't wait to answer, but turned and ran as fast as she could toward the medi-bay. This did nothing to bolster Hippolyta's confidence, and she did something very sissy. 

She fainted. 

 

When she came to, she was staring up at the underside of the bunk that she and Rimmer used to share. There was a figure sitting across from her, in the dark of her quarters, hunched over the table. It took Hippolyta a moment to realize that she was looking down at the figure, and she was actually on the top bunk. "Lights," she croaked. 

It was Lister in the chair, asleep, his head bobbing up and down gently as he slept. Hippolyta, with knees of jelly, crawled down the ladder and placed a hand on Lister's shoulder. Lister woke up instantly and blinked a few times. 

"Tell me." 

Lister nodded. "He's alive, Hollister." 

Hippolyta, not caring that he saw, sat down across from him and started crying. Great, heaving sobs racked her body, and her hands shook. "He's alive. Oh, God, thank God, he's alive..." 

"There's some bad news, Hollister." She took a deep shuddering breath, too hysterical to stop crying now, and just stared at him fearfully through her borrowed eyes. "By the time we got there, he had almost no brain activity. He's in a coma. Probably for good." 

"But he's alive." Her voice was dead, emotionless, as she clung to this fact like a drowning woman. "He's alive." All the hate, all the stress, all the anger and rage that had plagued her thoughts of Rimmer for the last three weeks was still roiling away under the surface, but relief was first in her mind. Rimmer was alive. The rest of the universe could go to hell, Rimmer was alive. 

"Kochanski's asleep." Lister spoke dispassionately, like he was giving a briefing. "Kryten says the water tanks are full to capacity, all the sludge is out of our plumbing, and the Bug's fuel cells are charged and ready. We can get under way as soon as we've all had a full twelve hours of sleep. That includes you." 

"But... Rimmer..." 

"Is not going to come out of it, Hollister." 

"He might." 

"He won't. Kryten says that..." 

"FUCK KRYTEN!" she shrieked. "KRYTEN CAN GO STRAIGHT TO THE SILICON HELL HE BELIEVES IN! RIMMER IS GOING TO COME OUT OF IT!" She ran out of the room, blinded by irrational anger, and fear, and the tears that these two emotions brought out. She stumbled and banged through all the doors between her quarters and the medi-bay, until she was finally there, and burying her face in his torso. A similar scene from just a few hours before, only now she was the one babbling at him. 

"You bastard, you bastard, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me that she raped your mind? Why didn't you realize she was a killer? How could you not have seen it? You bastard, you idiot, you absolute moron, you smeghead!" 

And, as she muffled any further expletives with her face in the blanket, the Starbug XX gently boosted off the surface of the ice moon and soared off into space, pursuing the woman who had so screwed up all of their lives. 



"Dave?" 

"Not now, Kris. Not now." 

"Talk to me. Please?" 

"Why bother? You know what I'm thinking, right? Just lift it out of my head." 

"You're... you're not serious..." 

"Leave me alone, Kris. Leave me alone." 



_**Author's Note:** Holy smeg. How did I let six months go by? Bad ficcer, no biscuit._


	10. Contusion

_**Author's Note:** Forgot this in the last chapter: Big heaping thank you to LJ user michaelakayla. She gave me the solution to my writer's block with her very astute observation of Kochanski's blooming powers. Without her, I wouldn't have been able to update. Thank you!_

"Would you like any soup, Miss Hollister?" 

"No." 

"You haven't eaten in three days, Miss Hollister." 

Blearily, Hippolyta raised her head from the medi-console that she'd been resting it on. The dizziness rolled over her like a wave, and she blinked and swallowed, her stomach crying out for something, anything, to put in it. But then her brain went and had a stern talking to with the stomach and told it in no uncertain terms that the thought of food made her nauseous. No soup for you. 

"Kryten? The thought of spooning that fetid glop into my mouth makes me want to punch your lights out. Smeg off." 

"But I put the croutons and cheese in it like you like. All nummy and cheesy and croutony..." Kryten waved the bowl under her nose enticingly, and Hippolyta had to admit that it did smell quite good. She tentatively reached forward and took the bowl of steaming soup in her hands. Kryten then brought a hand out from behind his back and brandished a spoon, with a chipper little, "Tah dah," at her. She took the spoon, dipped it into the bowl, and managed to swallow a bit. 

The first sip gave her the stomach for more, and she started shoveling it up faster, making loud slurping noises with each spoonful. Kryten, meanwhile, was clucking over her like a hen. 

"You haven't moved from this spot since we lifted off, Miss Hollister. You need to sleep." He had fetched a blanket from somewhere, and he draped it over her shoulders, managing, somehow, to tuck her into her chair. 

"I did sleep. I think. A bit." The last three days had been one long nightmare, and the slightest change in Rimmer's condition caused her to either gasp in terror or sob in relief. The EEG bleeped morosely from across the room, its electrodes stuck to Rimmer's temples and the back of his neck. It looked like an octopus had taken up permanent residence on his head. She had tuned her ear to every slight change, every skipped beep, every change in pitch of the machinery. Her eyes rarely left the waveform screen, watching the slow, rhythmic patterns of Rimmer's thoughts made light. The only time they slipped away was when she became so overcome by fatigue that she nodded off where she sat. Then, after she'd awakened, she'd berate herself for slipping in her vigil. 

For that's exactly what she was doing; holding vigil. If she were even slightly religious, she'd have been praying herself into a stupor. But the spiritual avenue had been closed off to her years before, leaving her in the cul-de-sac of angry atheism, so all she could do now was keep a running, silent litany. _He'll come out of it. He'll come out of it. He must come out of it._

Kryten nodded in satisfaction as she finished her soup, and handed him back the empty bowl. "You should sleep, Miss Hollister. We're going to be at Bai's ship in forty eight hours, we all need to be in tip top condition." He was fiddling with something on the counter, and Hippolyta muzzily figured it was something for Rimmer. 

"I'm fine, Kryten. Thanks for the soup." Then, a thought flitted across her exhausted brain. "Kryten, why are you being so nice to me?" 

"Miss Hollister?" Kryten had his back to her, and his shoulders hunched up guiltily. She didn't notice. 

"You hate me. And Kochanski. You go out of your way to make us miserable. Yet here you are, bringing me soup and tucking me in. What gives?" 

Kryten shifted his eyes to the floor and he twiddled his fingers against his chest monitor. "What are you talking about? I'm your crew mate and friend! I like you. I'd even go so far as to say that you're a wonderful human being!" 

But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were planted firmly on the EEG again, so when the mechanoid picked something up from the counter, crossed back over to her and swiftly jabbed the hypospray in her neck, she wasn't expecting it at all. 

"You bast...ard..." She yawned once, then she was asleep before she could finish closing her mouth. 

Kryten scooped her up her limp, borrowed form and laid her out on the cot across from Rimmer's. Then, he moved to the door, opened it and stuck his head through. "She's out. Come in." 

Lister came in, followed close behind by The Cat. Lister crossed over to Rimmer's bed and shook his head. "No changes?" 

"Nothing, Mister Lister. I'm afraid that Mister Rimmer is effectively dead." 

The Cat nodded grimly. Then he took out a paper blower and made a tooting noise with it. "Party time!" 

"Cat, shut up." Lister sat down in the chair so recently vacated by Hippolyta and held his head in his hands. "No brain activity at all?" 

"Minimal," answered the mechanoid, scanning the EEG read out. "His alpha waves are nonexistent, and he's only just got the basic subconscious functions. If he ever did come out of it, which I doubt, he'd be a vegetable. Unable to feed himself, dress himself, speak, anything." 

"So how is that different than normal? He's never been able to dress himself!" 

"Cat! Shut up! Or I'll rip your tonsils out and stuff them in your ears." Lister turned to where Hippolyta slept in her drugged state. "Does she know that?" 

"Yes, sir. She's perfectly capable of reading this chart." Kryten held up the chart in question, which had red ink valleys below the median line. It looked like a stock market ticker on Black Tuesday. Grim, bloody, and full of bad news. "The good news is that we can keep Mister Rimmer's body alive indefinitely." 

Lister closed his eyes and sighed. He never would have admitted it, but his heart was breaking. Not just for Hippolyta, but for himself as well. Rimmer was the closest thing he had to a link to his old life, a life that had a half-assed dream of Fiji and donut stands. A life of owning a sheep, and a cow, and horses, and Kochanski in a white dress, riding a horse on the beach during sunset. Kochanski would have... no, not now. 

"The question is, Kryten, _should_ we keep him alive indefinitely? I mean, is he in pain?" 

"Doubtful. The pain centers of his brain are almost completely atrophied. He's not suffering, Mister Lister, I promise you." 

A lifetime of liberal beliefs came pounding on Lister's conscience's door. They said, _"Hello. Right to die. You don't know if he wanted this. You can't keep him hooked up to machinery like this forever."_

"Kryten? When was the last time our holograms were updated?" 



"Are you sure you want to do this, Mister Lister?" 

Kryten and Lister had retreated to the hologrammatic simulation room. It was considerably smaller than the one on the Dwarf, but it didn't need to store 1,169 disks. It only needed to store 5. In their mad escape from the Dwarf, Lister had scrambled down to the Hologram Suite, and grabbed all of their disks. Fortunately, they were all in alphabetical order, so it had been easy. Hadn't taken him more than a minute. 

Now, Lister held Rimmer's disk up to catch the light. It was a CD about two inches across, with a larger than normal hole in the center. It rather resembled a small, thin, silver donut. 

"Yeah, Kryten, I'm sure. We need to know what Rimmer would have wanted us to do. Only way, man." 

"I should warn you, Mister Lister," began Kryten, as Lister popped the disk into the player and hit the "Boot Up" button. "This hologram will have no hard light capabilities. We lost that when we lost the first Rimmer. Remember? When he was killed by the AR sprite?" 

"What? No, he..." Lister stopped himself short, remembering that Kryten didn't know that their Rimmer, the first hologram, had gone off to be Ace, not killed. "Right. Right, of course. So we're back to 'no touch 'em, no feel 'em.'" 

There was a pause, then a shimmering in the air, as the wire-frame model of a new hologram being loaded took form. The light bee hummed almost silently, floating in the middle of this image. Then, slowly, the graphics kicked in, and downloaded onto the frame. Thirty seconds after the initial start up, there was a fully formed Arnold Rimmer, composed of light, standing in front of the generator. 

An Arnold Rimmer dressed in the regulation lavender of Floor 13. 

"Who are you? Do I know you?" Rimmer turned a look of absolute confusion on his bunkmate. Then he turned to the mechanoid. " Kryten? What happened? Where are we? This isn't the brig!" A look of hope flitted across his face. "Are we free?" 

Lister turned to Kryten, his eyes narrowed. "His hologram disk hasn't been updated since we were in the brig?" 

"Apparently not, no sir." Kryten looked very uncomfortable. He'd been meaning to nag everybody into updating their disks, but had let it slide. Laundry duties were far more important in the grand scheme of things. 

"Hologram? I'm a hologram?" wailed Rimmer. 

"Smegging hell," moaned Lister. This was going to make things complicated. 



"So I'm not dead." 

"No. But you're not exactly alive, as you can see." 

Rimmer, Lister, Kryten and The Cat were clustered back in the medibay, looking down at Rimmer's unconscious body. Rimmer abruptly turned an about face and pointed at Hippolyta. "And she's my girlfriend, but she's currently trapped in your body? And you in hers?" Lister nodded. "But I've never met her! Who is she?" 

"She was your parole officer. You two got together, got in a lot of trouble, and stole this 'Bug with the rest of us." 

"What? We broke Space Corps directive 34912.5!" 

"34912.5? I fail to see how an injunction against playing bocci ball in the showers is relevant to this discussion," Kryten sniffed. 

"What's the one about stealing from JMC?" 

"34_8_12.5. Any persons caught stealing JMC property will have their privileges revoked and their rank stripped. They are also subject to corporal punishment, up to and including forty lashes at the mast. Rather an archaic rule, but effective." 

"Ah. Good thing we're well away from that, then," Rimmer said nervously. "Rather a harsh punishment for such a petty crime, yes?" He peered down at Lister. "She's actually rather..." he stopped, looking at Lister from all angles, then continued with, "...bland looking. Are you certain we were an item?" Kryten, Lister and The Cat all nodded wordlessly. "We were, erm, having relations?" 

"Three times a night, sometimes," answered Lister ruefully. The way things were going, Lister's relations were going to be severely curtailed, seeing as Kochanski still wasn't speaking to him. He couldn't exactly blame her, considering his response to her newly discovered power. He didn't like the idea of her being able to read his innermost thoughts one bit. Forget the fact that he hadn't gotten laid since he and Hippolyta had swapped. Maybe that's why he was in such a sour mood. Oh, and the period thing. That wasn't helping either. 

"And then, while rabbiting about in the middle of nowhere, I had a run in with a telepathic woman, who, if evidence is to be believed, is three million years old? And it left me a dribbling husk?" 

Again, the others nodded, agreeing with the hologram. 

"And none of you find this odd?" 

"Rimmer!" 

"Seriously, you're all far too accepting of this nonsense. This sounds like it was written by some retarded science fiction nerd, locked up in his mum's basement." Rimmer took a seat in the chair, his hologrammatic form imperceptibly floating above the surface. "Although I do like the idea of having a woman in my life, even if she is a bit... mousy." He peered at Lister again. "She's smart, right? And a bit quiet? Very feminine and shy, like all good women are? I bet she looks up to me, right? A strong manly voice, guiding her and helping her in all her decisions?" 

Lister, Kryten and The Cat all stared wide eyed at Rimmer. "Well, there's proof positive. Rimmer's much more intelligent when he's brain dead," said The Cat. 

Rimmer raised an eyebrow at this. "She's not shy?" 

The three friends shook their heads. 

"She doesn't look up to me?" 

Heads shook again. 

"She's not stronger than I am, is she?" 

Three heads nodded enthusiastically. 

Rimmer made a face. "She sounds wretched. Why the smeg would I end up with her?" 

"Because you're a weasely, puffed up little twerp with all the self-esteem of a newt that's been trod on, and she's just as bad?" asked Kryten. "That's just my take on it, anyway." 

Lister rolled his eyes impatiently. "Look, Rimmer, we need you to tell us something very important." 

The hologram stood up, chest puffed out. "Oh? Couldn't do without old Rimmsy to get you through the crisis? Needed a firm hand at the steering column? Are you totally lost without my advice? I'd be happy to help, Listy. Ask away!" 

"Do yer want us to pull the plug?" 

"What?" Rimmer looked completely shocked, deflating like a leaking zeppelin. "Pull the plug? Are you mad?" 

"You don't have a living will on file, Rimmer. You're brain dead. Do you want to be kept alive artificially? Or do you want us to pull the plug?" 

"Absolutely not!" screeched Rimmer. "If you pull that plug, you're no better than a common murderer!" 

Lister raised an eyebrow. For all of Rimmer's posturing about how to take care of the elderly and terminally ill, he certainly wasn't applying his ideas to his own life. But what else was new? "What part of 'You're brain dead' did you miss, Rimmer? The lights are off, nobody's home. You'll probably never regain consciousness." 

"Better that than completely dead!" The hologram crossed over to his body and threw his arms out, like he was on a barricade in France somewhere. "I'm completely against the idea. I'm not going to let you kill me!" 

"What?" came a muzzy voice from across the room. The three living men and the hologram swiveled to the source. Hippolyta was struggling to make herself sit up, the drug dose making her eyes bloodshot. 

Lister turned to Kryten. "You said she'd sleep for ten hours, Kryten!" 

"I must have miscalculated the dose..." mused Kryten. 

"Oh, marvelous. Florence Nightingdroid here can't even fill a hypospray!" sneered Rimmer. "And he's in charge of my care. Wonderful!" 

"Rimmer?" Hippolyta staggered from the bed, clutching the blanket around her shoulders. "You're awake? Oh, thank God..." She trailed off, and wobbled for a bit, took two more steps, and fell face first through the hologram. He shimmered and waved, and then stepped away from her, regaining his shape. The woman on the floor turned her head up, and peered at him. 

"Hologram?" she breathed. "Oh no. Oh God, oh no God no, Jesus, no..." and she started crying, turning her face to the floor. 

"Hollister, calm down. He's still alive!" Lister reached down, and, signaling to Kryten, managed to heave her up between them and hustle her back into her bed. 

"Then why'd... you pull up his hologram...?" 

"We needed to know if he wanted us to pull the plug, Hollister." 

"PULL THE PLUG? DAVID LISTER IF YOU PULL THE PLUG I WILL RIP YOUR TRACHEA OUT AND BEAT YOU WITH IT UNTIL _YOU'RE_ IN A PERSISTENT VEGETATIVE STATE!" 

The volume rocked everybody back on their heels, considering that just a moment before, she'd sounded wispy and, well, drugged. The hologrammatic Rimmer flinched visibly. 

"Lovely girl," he whispered to Kryten. "I can see why we'd be so good together." 

"Actually, you're not," the mechanoid whispered back. "Apparently, just before you went into your coma, you, pardon the colloquialism, dropped her like a hot porous circuit." 

"And this was right before I conked out? Has nobody questioned her in this whole thing?" Rimmer watched as Lister and The Cat tried to restrain Hippolyta to the bed, who was thrashing about like a beached whale. 

"No, she didn't do this to you, that I can assure you. She's sat right by your bed the whole time. Not eating, not sleeping, she's determined that you'll wake up, sir." 

"I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD YOU'RE SAYING KRYTEN, YOU METALLIC MATA HARI!" The thrashing on the bed redoubled. 

"Hollister! Calm down! Kryten, get a tranq in her, for smeg's sake!" The mechanoid turned to go to the counter, but stopped, because the door to the medibay whooshed open and Kochanski entered the room. 

Everybody froze. Nobody was quite sure how to feel around Kochanski yet, and in self defense, they all filled their heads with innocuous thoughts. If she noticed, she didn't say anything. The only person who didn't seem nonplussed was Rimmer. "Miss Kochanski, ma'am!" Rimmer threw a full salute. "I tried to break up the fight, but they wouldn't listen to me. I recommend you put them all on report." 

Kochanski shot a perplexed look at the hologram her eyes flicking to his forehead. "Rimmer?" 

"Yes ma'am?" he asked, still in full salute mode. 

"Shut up." Kochanski turned to Kryten. "Whose bright idea was it to boot up his hologram?" 

"Mine, Kris," said Lister, letting go of Hippolyta's arm. "We didn't know if Rimmer wanted to be kept on life support, so I booted him up to ask him." Every syllable pleaded with her to forgive him his stupid words the night that she'd discovered her power. They hadn't seen much of each other at all. He'd beaten a strategic retreat, frightened of who she had become. A drug addict, a telepath, a former criminal... and yet he still loved her, unendingly. She hadn't been out of their quarters once. Lister supposed she'd been moping, much like he had. 

"Turn it off. We don't need it." 

"Hey!" protested Rimmer. "What am I, some sort of household appliance? You can't just turn me off whenever you feel like it!" 

Kochanski heaved a deep, suffering sigh and said, "Fine, keep it on, I don't care. You're not pulling the plug on Rimmer, and that's final, Dave." 

"Thank you!" yelled Hollister from the bed. "First sensible thing you've said in months, Kochanski." Then she paled. "Urg, I don't feel so..." And with those words, the drugs took her back into unconsciousness. 

"Smegging hell," said Rimmer, "is it always this insane around here?" 

"Yes!" snapped Kochanski. "And you're the leading cause as to why!" Then she turned to Lister. "Dave, I have a favor to ask of you." 

"Anything," he said quickly. 

"Follow me." 

He obeyed, and they both walked out of the medibay, leaving Kryten, Rimmer and The Cat staring at each other. 

"I'm going to change," whined Cat, breaking the silence. "I haven't been this sweaty since I looked in the mirror last!" 

He too left the medibay, with Kryten fast on his heels. "Stay here, Mister Rimmer. I'm going to check on our flight path, make sure we're still on course." 

After throwing the V sign at the closing door, Rimmer cautiously walked over to the bed where Hippolyta lay sleeping. Her borrowed face was slack, and her eyes were halfway open, rolled up in their sockets. Cautiously, he went to put a hand on her shoulder, and then started back in surprise when his hand went right through her. Stepping back quickly, he stumbled through the chair, standing right in the middle of it. 

Being a hologram could take the piss. 

The girl moaned in her sleep, then started snoring. Even though he had just heard a woman's voice issuing from the mouth, Rimmer still had a hard time believing that it wasn't Lister lying on the cot. _Stupid smegger,_ he thought, directing his thoughts at his former bunkmate. 

Then she started mumbling in her sleep. "Rimmer... I... love you..." 

Rimmer's eyes widened at the implications of what she'd just said. Leaving aside the fact that she was drugged to the gills, she'd just said, aloud, that she loved him. Could it be? Was it possible? Was there actually somebody out there in this universe who actually loved him for who he was? Somebody who wasn't repulsed by him, by his attitude, by his ambition, by his ill luck? Somebody who... he broke up with? He left her? Why? Could it have been the body thing? But, from everything that Lister said, it was about to be reversed! 

He turned to his unconscious counterpart and shook his head. "You smegging idiot." 

Amazingly enough, his voice seemed to be enough to call the girl back from her drugged state. For the second time in as many minutes, Hippolyta came to, and stared cross-eyed at the hologram. 

"Rimmer?" 

"Yes?" 

"Could you get me a drink? I'm thirsty." 

"I'm sorry, no, I can't. Hippolyta, isn't it? I can't touch anything. I'm..." 

"A hologram. Right." The woman sighed. "Lister's a moron." She took in his uniform and said, "You know, I never liked that color on you." 

"Me neither," he answered. "I much prefer bold primary colors, you know. Much more macho, more manly." 

She smiled weakly. "I'm not going to remember this conversation tomorrow, but I've gotta say it." Rimmer grinned smugly, waiting with ill-concealed glee for her words of undying devotion. He was rather looking forward to it. She paused, then raised an eyebrow. "You're such a smeghead." 

Rimmer again deflated. "Do you outrank me?" 

"Yes, by quite a bit," she smirked. 

Rimmer's nostrils flared, and swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. "They said your surname was Hollister. No relation to the captain, right?" He sounded like he was pleading with her. 

"He was my uncle." 

Rimmer sneered, "And I'm sure he promoted you ahead of others more worthy, because you were his nephe... niece." 

Hippolyta noticed the wrong gender use, so she couldn't help twisting the knife. "Yup." This was, almost to the letter, the conversation she and Rimmer had back when they first met. She had wished she could go back to their first meeting and change their oddly antagonistic behavior toward each other. But she was giving him, yet again, the same answers that had enraged him so the first time. This caused her to muzzily consider everything that went on between them, past and present. Even under the influence of tranquilizers, she could clearly see everything that was wrong with their relationship. This subtle and not-so-subtle teasing and tormenting had been the leitmotif throughout. The only time they didn't snipe and snark at each other was when they were having sex. Not to run down the sex, the sex was great. 

Why did she love him? What was it about him that got under her skin like a jungle parasite? 

She knew that she wasn't the... calmest person in the universe. But this knowledge didn't encourage her to change her behavior in the least. On the contrary, it made her want to lash out more, just to prove to the universe that she was _right._ Stubbornness aside, she had it pounded into her skull, over and over again, that her judgment was the only thing she could trust, as everybody else had the brains of a kumquat. Including Rimmer. In fact, he didn't even have the brains of a kumquat. He had the brains of a _rotten_ kumquat. So why was she with him? What did it say about her that she loved a man who was so obviously beneath her? 

The blinding flash of insight, brought on by the drugs, wasn't what she was expecting. She was expecting a laundry list of reasons, ranging from pity to lust to just plain old "well, it was a good idea at the time..." What she got was: "You love him because you see all that's good in him. You push him around when he doesn't live up to that expectation in your head." 

Rimmer had been glaring at her the entire time this was floating through her head, and was apparently waiting for her to offer up an apology of some sort. Her eyelids drooped, and she peered at him from under them. 

"Rimmer?" 

"What?"

"You were absolutely right to dump me. Or, he was. You were. Whatever. Our whole relationship has been a lie. I lied to you about how I felt about you. You lied to me about how you wanted me to act. We're even." 

"What?" The hologram looked completely lost. "What do you mean, it was a lie? Why are you telling me this?" 

"Because I probably won't get a chance to say it to him," she answered, gesturing weakly at the unconscious form across the room. "Sorry for the inconvenience..." And she was asleep again. 

Rimmer was saved from further confusion by the reappearance of Lister and Kochanski, who were carrying big bundles of equipment, wires trailing off behind them like bridal trains. Lister had a huge grin on his face, and Kochanski looked positively giddy. They started scattering the equipment about. Rimmer saw a visor, some gloves, a couple of groinal attachments... 

"Artificial reality gear?" he asked. "What's that for? I don't quite think it's the time to fire up Legend of Zelda and battle legions of octorocks." 

"We're going to get you out of this coma you're in, you smeghead," said Lister, slipping a visor down over the unconscious man, being careful to not disturb the electrodes of the EEG. Then he turned and did the same to Hippolyta's head. "You think they need the gloves, Kriss?" 

Kochanski nodded. "They'll need to be able to get out when we're done. You ready, Dave?" 

He had just finished hooking up the AR equipment to the EEG and stood back, nodding in satisfaction. Kochanski hadn't been moping in their quarters. She'd been thinking. And a hell of a solution it was, too. "You think this'll work?" 

"Couldn't hurt," mused Kochanski. She slid her own visor down over her face and flipped the side switch. When she spoke next, her voice sounded ever so slightly tinny, like she was talking through a voice distorting microphone. "Boot 'em up, Dave." 

Lister flipped first the switch on Hippolyta's head, then Rimmer's. Then, with one final wave at the perplexed hologram, Lister put on his own visor and gloves and switched on. 



Artificial Reality as a therapy device had its origins in the late twenty-first century. When primitive personal gaming devices achieved the ability to project entire worlds into a consumer's head, it quickly became obvious what a powerful tool it was. The mental health community descended upon it like flies to shit. Multiple personalities were ferreted out in a completely safe environment, delusions shattered under the watchful eye of a skilled therapist and a computer. The distinction between reality and fantasy became quite marked when it became simply a matter of plugging into a machine. But there was a flip side to this type of therapy. A user would often substitute their own delusions for the one created by the computer. Reality is what you make it. And they made their own realities within a machine. 

There was even a standard program for this type of therapy. It was called "P.S.Y.C.H.O." It stood for "Psychological Situations You Can't Handle alOne." (Bit of a stretch by the developers there, but hey.) It was initially seen as a large blank white space, and its flexibility allowed it to pull up any number of settings and situations from the wishes of its users. This same program was later modified for Cyber Schools. An entire generation grew up with the needles of AR in their cerebral cortexes. 

This is why Better Than Life was such a powerful addiction. It took the P.S.Y.C.H.O. engine, spliced in the telepathic adware scannings, and went from there. When Kochanski's friends got their hands on the source code for both, it was the logical extension and terminus of that particular technology. 

This is why openware is a bad idea. 

Lister and Kochanski found themselves standing on nothing in a large white room, which seemed to stretch out infinitely in all directions. The white was so pure that Kochanski was reluctant to move in the slightest, for fear she'd leave scuff marks and footprints on it. Lister, on the other hand, was blithely spinning around, trying to take in the size of the room. One moment it would seem like he could put out a hand and touch a wall. The next, the same wall seemed so far away, it would take a long hike to get there. Then, Lister made another discovery. He was back in his old body. No longer was he stuck in Hippolyta's. 

Lister let slip a low whistle. "What is this, Kriss?" 

"Therapy program." 

"And we just happened to have a copy in our AR suite?" 

"Comes standard with every AR system in the JMC. Regulations. Didn't it ever occur to you that we had to have some way of dealing with the space crazy?" 

"I just thought they got slapped in stasis or something." 

"Well, yes, that too," conceded Kochanski. "But that's last resort stuff. Stasis uses the same amount of power AR does, which is minimal, but any loss of personnel is no good." Kochanski stood up straighter and said, "Clipboard!" in a brusque voice. And, just as requested, a clipboard of clear plastic appeared in her hands. 

"Whoa," said Lister. 

Kochanski smiled. Then she frowned. "Why aren't they here yet? Their forms should have loaded right next to ours, even if they are unconscious..." Kochanski muttered. 

"Rimmer and Hollister?" 

"No, Laurel and Hardy! Of course Rimmer and Hollister." Kochanski circled around once, and then sighed. "Database query additional forms gamma delta load execute." Nothing happened. "Damn. I'm not up on my syntax. Let's try that again. Additional run program null retrieval forms gamma delta coordinates unknown replace coordinates zero zero zero mark one ampersand zero zero zero mark two execute." This seemed to do the trick. The bodies of Rimmer and Hollister, in her own form, appeared suddenly, sprawled out on the floor of the white room. Kochanski smiled primly to herself. Even years later her programming language, while a tad rusty, was second nature. She berated herself slightly for letting it go for so long. 

Lister looked impressed. "How'd you do that? What'd you do?" 

"I told the program to reload their avatars here. Simple enough." 

"Simple isn't the word I'd use," said Lister. "Where'd you learn to do that, Krissy?" 

"Cyber School," she answered. "But that was the easy part. Now it's going to get a touch tricky." 

"What are you planning, Kris?" 

Kochanski bit at her lower lip, and flipped through the pages on the clipboard. "I'm planning on using this software as a focus for my telepathy, sending feedback through the EEG, so we can wake Rimmer up." 

Lister boggled. "You what?" Kochanski ignored him. "Is that even possible?" 

"Dunnow, the specs for this program don't mention anything about how the neural interface works," she said, tapping at the clipboard with the top of her fingernail. "Proprietary software never does. But I'm thinking that the electrical impulses of the brain can be used to create feedback into the machine. If so, then I can use my... powers..." she hesitated there, still not having come to grips with this new facet of her life, "...to nudge Rimmer's brain back into functioning consciousness. You with me?" 

"I was with you right up until you said, 'specs,'" answered Lister. "But I think I've got the gist of it. You're going to reboot Rimmer's brain with an EMI, right?" 

"Take out the 'M' and you've got it," agreed Kochanski. "In fact, replace the M with a 'T.'" 

"T?" 

"ElectroTelepathic Impulse." 

Lister shook his head. "So why'd you bring in me? And Hollister?" 

"Rimmer needs something familiar that he can focus on. They say that if you talk to a coma patient, he can hear you. Same basic concept here. In fact, we need a background of some sort. If he were to come to in this... whiteness, it might shock him enough to slip him back into the coma." Kochanski pondered. "What would you say is the best place for him to be? Someplace familiar." 

"Their quarters," answered Lister immediately. Kochanski nodded. 

"Access query audio visual program Starbug XX officer's quarters deck two port side execute." The whiteness was immediately replaced by the double bunk and living room of Rimmer's and Hollister's shared quarters. Kochanski turned and put a hand on Hippolyta's shoulder. The woman's eyes fluttered, and opened. She sat up. 

"Kochanski? What's going on?" She stood up and looked around her. "When did we get back to my quarters?" Then she caught sight of Lister and her eyes widened. She looked down at herself, then let out a whoop of laughter, followed by an enthusiastic jig. "Hot DAMN! I'm me again!" 

"Slow down, Hollister," said Kochanski. "We're in AR." 

"Fuck," whined Hippolyta after a beat, throwing up her hands in disgust. "Why?" 

"We're going to try to get Rimmer back." 

Hippolyta's eyes widened again, and she raised an eyebrow at Kochanski. "Using AR? P.S.Y.C.H.O?" 

"Does everybody know about this program except for me?" asked Lister to no one in particular. 

"I was a security officer, Lister. You wouldn't believe how many times I had to sit in on these sort of sessions." Hippolyta turned to Kochanski. "Good idea, but for one tiny detail. P.S.Y.C.H.O. doesn't work if the patient is comatose." 

"That's where I come in," answered Kochanski, and once again outlined her plan. Hippolyta looked supremely uncomfortable when the other woman finished. 

"I don't like the idea of you rifling through his head, Kochanski. Or anybody's head, for that matter." 

"Look at it this way, Hollister. What choice do we have?" asked Kochanski, with her arms folded across her chest. 

Hippolyta sighed and then reluctantly nodded. "Ok. Go to." 

"Brace yourselves, this might get a bit disquieting..." Kochanski got a determined look, and closed her eyes. 

The noise started out almost inaudible, at first. Like a television turned all the way down, or the rumblings of the ocean heard from several miles away. Then, slowly, it built, rumbling across the floor, making the soles of their shoes vibrate. A cross between static and a subway train one moment, then an avalanche and a crowd of thousands screaming at a home run the next. It grew, gathering momentum, bypassing eardrums and making its way directly into the brain. Hippolyta and Lister both slapped their hands over their ears, but this was completely ineffective. Partly because the noise was completely in their heads, and partly because they were in AR. But, they're humans. It's an instinctual thing to slap hands over ears when confronted with loud noises. 

Kochanski, meanwhile, was in the center of a red-purple vortex of energy, which swirled and crackled all around her. 

Lister turned to Hollister and yelled, hands still over ears, "Could this get any more smegging bizarre!" 

"What?" 

Just as slowly as it had built, the noise rumbled into silence, and the energy surrounding Kochanski stopped, like a bad video game effect. Which was apropos, considering that they were in a video game. There was a moment of ringing silence. 

With a supersonic bang, the energy flew from around Kochanski onto the still unconscious form of Rimmer. Hollister started forward, jerked into movement at the way his body spasmed when it hit him. 

"Don't touch him!" commanded Kochanski, her eyes clenched shut. "I've... almost got him..." Then she gasped. 

Kochanski fell through blackness, tumbling head over heels, no rushing air or slightest friction slowing her fall. Her first deliberate foray into the mind of another wasn't exactly what she'd expected. She'd wished that it was as simple as reading a book. What she got was a physical sensation. Like sticking your hand into a bowl of warm jello: Squishy, slightly unsettling, and almost kind of fun to play with. As she fell, images and sounds buffeted at her, like bugs splattering against the visor of a motorcycle rider. She could almost make them out, but were too brief and fast to register consciously. Then, she realized that she wasn't the only one falling through the blackness. She could hear Hollister screaming, and slowly turned her head to the left. 

_Calm down, Hollister._

Hollister stopped screaming, too shocked to draw breath. She tried to speak, but the words bypassed her mouth, and she suddenly realized that she was holding this conversation completely telepathically. 

_What the smeg is going on here, Kochanski?_

_We're looking for Rimmer. Why I grabbed you to come along, I don't know. But, just a bit further..._ Kochanski pointed suddenly at a brilliant speck just below them. _There. Follow me._

_Don't have much of a choice, do I?_ Hollister tried to maneuver herself toward the speck, and found her fall, somehow, slowing. A moment later, but impossibly at the same time, she and Kochanski were crouched next to the glowing spot. 

This whole telepathic thing could take the smeg. The human mind was just too complex to be poking about in it like this. Or maybe it was too simple. One wrong move and the whole thing could come crashing down like a poorly balanced wooden block tower. Which is why they were going through all this in the first place. _If I ever get my hands on Bai..._ thought Hollister aloud. 

_We will. Concentrate on the here and now, Hollister. _

What am I concentrating on, exactly? 

Rimmer. 

Where is he? 

You're looking at him. Kochanski pointed at the glowing spot, and Hollister did a double take. And then she felt him. 

He was terrified. He was huddled so far in on himself that he could only barely recognize the fact that both she and Kochanski were inside his mind. In fact, Hollister could tell that he thought that she was Bai. Not knowing what else to do, Hollister reached forward and scooped up the glowing spot in her hands. Ignoring Kochanski, forgetting all the anger and sadness that she held against him, Hollister cradled Rimmer to her chest. 

_Rimmer? _

Hippolyta?

Their separation was over. This was the closest two people could truly get. They clung to each other, whimpering slightly. They were so intent upon their embrace that they completely missed Kochanski nudging them upwards. The small glow grew, became stronger, became Rimmer-shaped. 

The flash of white shocked them back into reality, and Rimmer and Hollister reluctantly released each other. They were back in the expansive white room, Rimmer's sprite tangled up in Hippolyta's. Lister jumped forward, helping Kochanski sit up. The four of them stared at each other, all pretty well stunned into silence. 

"You ok, Kochanski?" asked Hollister eventually, her hand on Rimmer's. 

"Yes," answered the other woman, sounding surprised. "I'm fine. I wonder..." 

"Wonder what?" asked Lister, staring at Rimmer still. He couldn't believe that it had worked. He didn't know whether to be relieved, or scared witless. 

"How on Io did you do that?" asked Rimmer, his eyes wide with wonder. 

Hollister patted his hand. "You've missed some important plot stuff, love. I'll tell you later." 

"What do you wonder, Kris?" insisted Lister. 

Instead of answering, she reached forward and grabbed Lister's hand, then Hollister's. Before either of them could react, there was another vortex of energy, and then... blackness. 



The scene was now reversed. Rimmer sat at the medi-console, his eyes never leaving the screen. Hollister was laid out on the bed, and Lister was just across from her. 

"That shouldn't have happened," intoned Kochanski for the tenth time, looking sweaty and pale. 

The hologrammatic version of Rimmer hovered nearby. He'd not been turned off, much to the consternation of the real Rimmer. Too much had gone on in too short a time to deal with that tiny detail. Rimmer wondered if it would be considered self-abuse to shut it off. He turned bloodshot eyes on Kochanski. 

"Why did you do that?" 

"I thought I could switch them again. Seemed simple enough after bringing you back." Kochanski was leaning against the doorway, the AR helmet still dangling from a limp hand. 

"I don't understand any of this," whined the hologram. Before anybody could tell him to shut up, Kryten appeared in the door. 

"You were correct, Miss Kochanski, ma'am. There was an enormous power surge just before you all came out of AR." The mechanoid held a printout toward Kochanski, who took it and scanned it quickly. The mechanoid turned to Rimmer. "I would like to say that it's a pleasure to have you back, sir." 

Rimmer looked surprised. "You would?" 

"Yes. I would like to say that. But I can't." 

Both the hologram and the living Rimmer turned a look of purest rage on Kryten. 

"Not now, Kryten," sighed Kochanski. "How long were we out?" 

"Twenty four hours, Miss Kochanski," he answered. "I was about to wake you when you all came out of AR on your own. But..." He trailed off, and gestured at Lister and Hollister. "What happened to them?" 

"I tried to switch them back myself. That power surge was me tapping into the AR machine again, like I did for Rimmer. But two minds at once... the software couldn't handle it." She looked chagrined. "I couldn't handle it." 

Rimmer blinked, and shook his head. "So get back in there and fix it!" 

Kochanski just shrugged. "I can't," she answered. "I'm tired. Give me a day to rest up..."

"Time is not a luxury we have any more, Miss Kochanski," interjected Kryten. "Bai's ship is less than a kilogook away. We'll be there in forty-five minutes." 

"Oh, shit." The AR helmet fell out of her hands with a dull thud. She bent over to retrieve it. "I guess I don't have a choice, do I? Ok, Kryten, I need you to..." 

She was preparing to boot back into AR when she froze, her gloves halfway on. "Shit," she murmured again. "Too late." 

A figure was materializing in the middle of their medi-bay. Too gray to be a hologram, too solid to be a hallucination. Bai had returned. 

"I warned you once already," intoned the figure, looking Kochanski right in the eyes. "I do not like repeating myself. But, since you are all so congenitally stupid, I suppose I must. LEAVE! NOW!" Her voice buzzed and echoed around the room, causing Kryten and Kochanski to flinch. 

"No," answered Kochanski, shaking slightly. "We need to switch them back. You stole the watch from us. Give it back and we'll leave you alone." 

"I? Stole it from you?" Bai sounded murderous. "You stole it first! And, besides, the watch has..." She cut herself off. "You thought the watch did this?" She gestured at Lister and Hollister. Then she started laughing. "Great ancestors in heaven, you really _ARE_ stupid!" she hooted. "You want the truth?" 

Kochanski nodded once, not trusting herself to speak. 

"I did it," hissed Bai. "I did it to punish him for taking what was mine." 

"But we took other things off your ship..." began Kryten. 

"Kryten! Shut up!" wailed Kochanski. 

"You're welcome to them, mechanoid," snotted Bai. "But the watch has... sentimental value." Bai turned to Rimmer. "Nice to see you again, Strong as an Eagle. Feeling better? Learned your lesson about claiming talent that isn't yours?" 

Rimmer clenched his fists, but did not answer. The hologram, however, did. "Who the smeg are you?" 

Bai swung to face the hologram. "What's this? A computer generated mind? Fascinating. I think I'll take it." She slammed her fist into the hologram's ribs, grabbing at the light bee. The hologram shrieked once, then vanished. Bai sighed happily. "I might not be able to have you, Strong as an Eagle, but at least I can have your mind to keep me company on the long nights." 

Both Rimmer and Kochanski looked vaguely sick. "You're joking..." stated Rimmer faintly, not quite believing what she had just revealed about herself. 

"Is it so difficult to believe that I could love you, Arnold?" She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. Then, she answered her own question. "Yes, actually, it is. I'd much rather torture you than make love to you. So much more amusing." 

"Over my dead body..." came a growl from the bed. 

Hippolyta had awakened. She swung herself off the bed and advanced toward Bai. She didn't notice the stares that she was receiving from everyone around her. 

"I'm not going to let you keep his hologram, you bitch." 

"Hippolyta..." 

"Not now, Rimmer! You give it back right now, or I will personally come on board your ship, rip your head off and spit down your neck!" 

"Hollister!" 

"What! What is it, Kochanski?" 

"You're... back..." 

"Yes, I'm back, shut up, I'm threatening this whore at the moment." Hollister turned back to Bai. "Give. It. BACK!" 

"You boastful fool," sneered Bai. "With one touch of my mind, I could destroy you instantly. But, see, see how generous I am. Look in a mirror. Then leave! Leave now! This is your last warning!" And, with those words, Bai vanished again. 

Startled, Hollister glanced at the first reflective surface she could find, which happened to be the brushed steel of the bed frame. 

Her own face stared back at her, looking much the worse for the wear. New scars had appeared, and her hair was shorn, and it was dirty and without make up. But she was _back in her own body!_

She slowly turned and looked at Rimmer. Rimmer's jaw was hanging open, as if he couldn't quite believe the evidence of his own eyes. She stepped toward him. And then they fell into each other's arms. 



"There it is." 

"I know." 

"Now what?" 

"I don't know, Dave." 

"She's still got Rimmer's hologram." 

"And she's still got a pummeling coming to her." 

"She could kill us all." 

"Scared?" 

"Terrified." 

"...Of me, or of her?" 

"...Both?" 

"Fair enough." 

"I still love you, though." 

"I know." 

"I know you know." 

Lister leaned in and kissed Kochanski, using his own lips, for the first time in three weeks. "Let's get the bitch." 



_**Author's note:** Only one more chapter left, guys! Tender and not-so-tender reunions ahead. Get your hankies ready._


End file.
